


Well Endowed

by grey2510, ThayerKerbasy



Series: Hell on Earth [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: (but everyone ends up ok), (this is a happier fic than this would imply), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But Crowley is dead, Crack Treated Seriously, Eileen lives!, F/M, Families of Choice, Gen, Hell Trauma, Hellhounds, M/M, Past-Demon!Dean/Crowley, Post-Episode: s12e23 All Along the Watchtower, Sam/Eileen (side pairing)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-11 07:17:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11709525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grey2510/pseuds/grey2510, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThayerKerbasy/pseuds/ThayerKerbasy
Summary: I, Crowley, known in life as Fergus Roderick MacLeod, being of sound mind, body, and demonized soul, declare that this is my last will and testament. I hereby revoke, annul, and cancel all wills and codicils previously made by me, either jointly or severally. I declare that I am of legal age, and have been since before my lawyer's grandfather was conceived. This last will expresses my wishes without undue influence or duress, even — or, indeed, particularly — when said wishes are contrary to those of anyone who ever wanted anything from me. I hereby nominate, constitute, and appoint the demon Timothy Hubbard as Executor. If this Executor is unable or unwilling to serve, then I appoint the demon Harold Newman as alternate Executor. My Executor is empowered to settle any and all debts on my behalf, excluding soul contracts. I hereby bequeath...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, many moons ago (aka somewhere around the end of July...), this post cropped up on Tumblr: <https://spnyoucantkeepmedown.tumblr.com/post/163364941177/fer3112-theyellowbl00d-i-think-gavin-owns-the> and Thayer and I started talking, _no, but really, what if Crowley left everything to Dean?_ And so we talked about writing a fic about it, but not yet, because we had other projects we were working on, etc. 
> 
> And then, because I'm a terrible influence, I may or may not have casually sauntered over to Google Docs, as one does, and I may or may not have typed out the first half of chapter one and sent it over to Thayer. We agreed, hey, no pressure -- we can chip away at this while we work on our other stuff. 
> 
> Yeah, that didn't happen. We busted this sucker out in two weeks? Something like that. (I'm on vacation...time is irrelevant to me.) If you were following us on Tumblr, you might have heard us call this Project Christmas. There is no Christmas in this fic, BUT, writing it was like Christmas: we traded off by chapter, and so each time it was like getting a gift from the other person. 
> 
> Anywho, working on this with Thayer has been awesome and I hope you enjoy our baby.
> 
> \- Grey
> 
> \----------
> 
>  
> 
> This fic was born out of a crack post and a mutual love for the characters involved. Like most questionable romances, it swept us off our feet. We stayed up late spending time with it, neglected other important things in favour of it, and showered it with all our love. I hope you love it half as much as we did.
> 
> -Thayer

Dean shuffled into the library with a mug of coffee to find Sam and Cas looking obnoxiously awake as they hunched over a giant tome. Cas pointed something out to Sam, who nodded, then shifted to type something on his laptop.

"You sure that's what it is?" Sam asked and Cas nodded.

"We got a case?" Dean settled into a chair, kicking his still-slippered feet onto the one next to him. He took a sip as Sam raised an eyebrow at him, likely because of his attire. But Sam could shove it: mornings in the library weren't a black-tie event and if a man couldn't lounge about his own home in a bathrobe and boxers, then what was the point of anything?

Sam pushed the laptop back a few inches to rest his forearms on the table. "Not a case. There was a haunting up in Minnesota, but Donna and Claire have got it covered."

"Sam and I are updating some of the records and lore here," Cas added with his usual gravitas.

"Nerds."

Not that Dean was really complaining. Granted, it wasn't like Dean was planning on hanging up his spurs and living the quiet life after finally getting Mom back and Cas back and sending Jack over to Bizarro world to help make it not a shitshow after they'd gotten rid of Lucifer once and for all, but it was nice not having the constant threat of doom looming over them for a change.

Dean yawned and scratched his stomach. "Heard from Mom?"

Sam shook his head. "Not since Thursday. Guess she's working a case in Maine."

"She texted me," Cas chimed in, still looking at the book he and Sam had been geeking out over.

"'Course she did," Dean muttered into his mug, trying not to feel as bitter as the coffee tasted.

Cas looked up and peered at Dean curiously. "She wanted to know about an Enochian sigil. That's all."

Dean sat up. "She working a case against angels?"

"No. I believe she just came across the sigil on an artifact. She's fine. She said she should be back later this week."

"Unless she finds another hunt," Sam said, taking the words right out of Dean's mouth. Sam was subtler about it, but Dean knew his brother well enough to catch the slight hurt that Mary still wasn't around all that much, even after everything.

Cas opened his mouth like he was about the comment further, but a loud, echoing knock reverberated from the Bunker's door.

"The hell?" Dean frowned at Sam. "We got anyone coming by?"

The only person he could think of that might show up at the Bunker in the next few days would be Eileen, but Sam said yesterday she was still in South Carolina trying to figure out how they all got duped into thinking she was dead; latest theory: hellhound being trained on shapeshifters. Ketch was a sick bastard.

But Sam was already half out of his chair, hand going to where he had his gun tucked into the back of his jeans. "Nope."

"Goddammit." He'd love to say that bad guys don't knock, but that'd just be a lie; hell, he still had half a bottle of Scotch from Ketch just to prove the point.

Cas had his angel blade ready as he followed Sam towards the stairs; Dean paused only to get the hidden gun he had strapped under the table in a holster.

By the time Dean made it to the top of the stairs, Sam had his gun pointed towards the ground but ready, and with a nod at Cas and Dean, he reached for the handle.

"Don't kill me!" a squeaky voice greeted them as Sam wrenched open the heavy metal door. The voice belonged to a short man—maybe 5'3", if they were being generous—in a wrinkly suit with thin, wispy blondish hair, pasty skin, and almost colorless eyes behind wire-frame glasses. In his hand, he gripped a brown leather briefcase like his life depended on it. He looked like every nerdy stereotype there was but they'd all learned that appearances didn't often mean shit in this line of work. And if this dude knew where the Bunker was…

Cas' hand tightened on his angel blade and Dean knew he was about a tenth of a second from filleting this guy where he stood. Dean raised his gun.

"Who the hell are you?" Sam asked, his voice deceptively calm.

The man almost quavered looking up at Sam. "Whoa...I know the boss always called you Moose but he wasn't kidding…"

"Your boss?" Dean growled, reaching forward and grabbing the man by the lapel. "Cas, he human?"

"Demon," Cas confirmed. From the corner of his eye, Dean saw Cas look the demon up and down, then peer around him, probably looking for other threats. But, the angel didn't make a move and so Dean assumed short and squeaky was the only one around.

"I'm not here to hurt you!" the demon sputtered. "I have a message from Crowley!"

"Crowley's dead, dumbass," Dean spat out. "You're a little behind the times."

The man nodded his head, nearly bobbling it off of his neck. "I know, I know. I'm—was—his lawyer."

Sam frowned. "His...lawyer?"

The demon stuck out a hand. "Uh huh. Harold. Harold Newman. At least, I was, before." When no one took his hand, he let it fall and wiped it nervously on his thigh and instead offered a weak smile.

There were about a million _Seinfeld_ jokes on the tip of Dean's tongue, but that wasn't what was important at the moment. "The fuck does Crowley's lawyer want with us?"

"Well," _Newman_ squeaked, "not all of you. Just you, Dean."

Cas and Sam's eyes bored into Dean, who kept his own locked on the demon.

"What?"

Newman adjusted his glasses. "Um, Mr. Crowley had a will in the event he, um, died. He left everything to you."

"He what?" all three of them asked in unison.

Something unpleasant settled in Dean's gut.

Newman straightened up, obviously feeling a little more confident on familiar lawyerly territory. "You, Dean Winchester, are Mr. Crowley's sole beneficiary. And I'm here to go over your new assets."

 

* * *

 

Dean wasn't sure what was worse: when he left the room or when he came back.

There had been a moment of shocked silence as he, Sam, and Cas processed the demon's announcement before Sam started laughing like a goddamn idiot. (Dean began privately plotting revenge for his brother's "summer of love" comments that made Cas look like he wasn't sure whether to smite Sam for bringing it up or Dean for...whatever it was that Cas obviously _wrongly_ assumed happened while he was a demon. And even if Cas were right, and he wasn't saying the dude was, Dean was a _demon_ , so it didn't count. Right? Yeah.)

Dean had stalked off to put on real clothes because fuck if he was gonna sit there in his underwear and talk with a damn demonic _lawyer_ about how he was now apparently the heir to the King of Hell or whatever. And if he "accessorized" with Ruby's knife in his jacket, well, that was nobody's business but his. Unless _Newman_ made it his business.

He returned to the library to find Sam already reading through some documents with a serious line in his brow and a firm set of his jaw. Newman was sitting across from him, hands nervously shuffling through a few loose pages. If Dean had to guess, the nervousness had everything to do with the way Cas loomed over him. The angel's blue eyes flicked from the demon to Dean, then to a spot in the corner, before returning back to Newman, who visibly flinched under the intensity of Cas' gaze. Well, at least Cas had his back in this, not like his traitorous brother who thought this was the funniest shit ever.

Except that Sam didn't look like he was laughing now, and he looked up as Dean entered.

"Dude, I think this is legit," Sam said, gesturing with the paper he was currently holding. "Crowley really left you everything."

Ok, this was worse. Dean suddenly longed for those brief moments when they'd thought this was just a joke, that it couldn't be for real. Those were the glory days.

"Well," Newman interjected, "um, you didn't quite inherit everything. The King certainly _tried_ to leave you everything, but even with Mr. Crowley looking at every loophole—he really did have a brilliant mind for litigation and legalese, the contracts he would create..." The lawyer looked like a tween at a Bieber concert until he caught Cas' narrowed eyes.

Dean rolled his own eyes as he took a chair at the head of the table. "Yeah, he was a peach. C'mon, what the hell do you mean I didn't quite inherit everything? Why do I have to inherit any of it at all?"

"He tried to leave you Hell," Sam explained, sliding a thick stack of papers over.

Dean blinked. "Hell? Like, the whole thing?"

"A human cannot rule Hell," Cas cut in, breaking his stare at the demon to meet Dean's eyes. "Only a demon could. Or, a fallen archangel."

Newman nodded. "Mr. Crowley wrote the will while you were, um, a Knight, Mr. Winchester."

Dean suppressed a groan. "Great, so what _did_ I get? All his stupid suits? Please tell me he at least left me his Scotch."

"Actually, yes," Newman said. "His personal tailor has offered to send you his suits, and he would be more than happy to take you on as a new client. As for the Scotch, the King had a warehouse in St. Andrews."

Well, that was some good news at least; Crowley only drank the good stuff.

"South Carolina or Washington?"

"Scotland."

"Fucking figures." Just what he wanted: to fly in a stupid metal tube of death to get alcohol. Sonofabitch.

"Whoa," Sam said, reading another page. "Crowley left you _the Moon_?"

At that announcement, because he was a complete weirdo like that, Cas just _shrugged_. "It's just a very large rock in space. Jupiter's moons are far more interesting. Io and Europa, for instance."

No matter how many times Dean and Sam had heard things like this, it never stopped their jaws from practically hitting the floor. Because, yeah, of _course_ Cas had favorite moons to visit. Who didn't?

Newman adjusted his glasses. "Technically, the Moon belongs to Hell. If Mr. Winchester were to assume the throne, he would therefore possess the Moon as well. However, as he cannot rule Hell—"

"Yeah, yeah, got it: no small steps for Dean or giant leaps for hunterkind," Dean interrupted. "Alright, so other than good booze, why the fuck would I want any of Crowley's stuff?"

Sam sat back in his chair, half-annoyed. "I dunno, Dean, maybe because of _all of his stashes of lore and relics_? Think about it: Crowley was King of the Crossroads for _years_. Who _knows_ what kind of useful stuff he acquired—"

"There's an itemized list." Newman pulled a new stack from inside his briefcase.

"Holy shit," Sam blinked, taking the stack and immediately starting to read through it. "Wait, he had the Imperial Fabergé eggs?"

"Eggs?" Dean scoffed. "What, Sammy, you finally find the secret to a perfect egg white omelette in there? Add more kale or some shit?"

Sam ignored him and continued reading. Cas held out a hand and Sam gave him the bottom half of the stack.

"The Kusanagi," Cas read from his portion. Sam leaned over, his eyebrows raising as he followed Cas' finger to the page.

Dean perked up. Ancient Japanese sword that had been missing for centuries? Hell yeah.

"Dude, really?"

Sam looked at him, surprised. "You know what that is?"

Dean scowled at his brother. "What? I read."

Newman cleared his throat and the three of them returned their attention to the demon. Honestly, Dean had half-forgotten the twitchy little dude was there. "That's, um, not the most important thing we need to discuss."

"And what would that be?" Cas asked.

Newman straightened his tie. "The contracts. Mr. Crowley had many that were still open, and while the souls ultimately belong to Hell, you have become the executor of the contracts themselves."

Well, shit. "I don't want them. Rip 'em up, I don't care."

Sam put down his stack of paper. "Dean, we can't just—"

"Why not?" Dean snapped. "I'm the only one here who's actually made a demon deal and had to pay it."

Sam and Cas glanced at each other. Dean couldn't believe it—shouldn't the tables have been turned here? Shouldn't it have been Sam and Cas trying to talk Dean off the murder ledge? That was how this usually went, right?

"But," Sam said, choosing his words carefully. "But what if someone did something really horrible for their deal?"

Cas nodded. "We should at least look through them. You're both right: not everyone deserves Hell, but others just might."

Fucking hell. Dean sunk into his chair again, covering his face with his right hand and pinching the bridge of his nose. This day just couldn't get any worse.

Of course, a cold nose and a lick on the fingers of his dangling left hand, which sent him leaping from his chair yelling ( _not_ screaming) in an extremely masculine way, proved him wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

Life without her master was long and boring. Juliet had no idea how much time had passed since her master left. Time didn’t mean much in Hell, and her time at her master’s palace had been odd for awhile.

In the good times, her master had played fetch and fight-over-the-thing with her, taken her on hunts, and had generally been good about petting her. He was a good master. The arrival of the Lucifer angel-demon had changed everything. Even though he was almost always trapped in a chair, he somehow kept Juliet’s master busy. Everything her master did was suddenly all about Lucifer or Lucifer’s spawn.

Then, one day, everything changed. The Lucifer angel-demon got out of his chair and left. Her master was in a rat until he wasn’t, and then he left. Neither of them had returned.

Since then, Hell had gotten louder. There were demons saying that Lucifer would come back, demons saying that Crowley had put him away once and could do it again, and demons who didn’t care about either and just wanted to have a good time. Juliet had quickly decided to steer clear of all of them by hiding out in the kennel. The most recent litter of pups weren’t as bad as shouty demons.

She was hiding from overly-playful pups when she smelled a demon she had never smelled before. Paper and ink and…smoked ham? Before the kennel master could investigate, Juliet decided to get a closer look. Jumping to the tallest rock, she watched the newcomer teleport away from the pack of pups, not once, but twice, before realizing he could just step onto a rock to get away from their still-incorporeal teeth.

Kennel master Connall came out to meet with the new demon — who wasn’t really a new demon, just a relatively old demon she had never met — and they talked a bit. Something about legal documents and worldly possessions and transfer of ownership. None of it really made much sense. But then Connall looked out over the room until he spotted Juliet. He didn’t move towards her at all, only called, "Juliet, come here, please."

Well, she could never say no to such a request. Kennel master Connall had taken such good care of her whenever she decided to stay with him. He would surely never allow anyone in who meant her harm. She jumped off her rock and bounded over to him, nosing his fingers.

Connall lifted his hand and stroked her head. "Juliet, this is Harold Newman. He has come to take you to your new home."

New home? Had her master decided to relocate from the palace to somewhere else? Was he in hiding from the Lucifer angel-demon? Had he found somewhere better than the palace? Juliet couldn’t imagine somewhere better than a palace with dark corridors full of rats to chase.

Paper/ink/smoked ham Harold Newman (New Man? Was he careless with his previous meatsuit?) held a folder of papers. Juliet’s master had often dealt with folders of papers. Perhaps they were contracts. She missed contracts. Her master had been gone long, and she was probably behind on collecting souls.

"Thank you," said New Man Harold. "I’d like for this transition to go as smoothly as possible. Mister Crowley had many assets, but this might be the first time a demon has willed his hellhound."

Leather/ash/fresh meat Connall had a strange expression on his meat face, which Juliet couldn’t decipher. "Just make sure her new owner knows what she needs."

Wait, new owner? No no no, that’s not how it was supposed to work. Her master was supposed to be her master forever. He couldn’t just give her away to someone else.

She was still trying to sort out what they were talking about when New Man Harold said, "Of course. Juliet, let’s take you to meet your new owner."

Had it been under normal circumstances, she’d have had her jaws around his wrist before he could even get close. Instead, she stared at him, stunned, as he reached out and touched her side. Before she could get her wits about her to react, they were somewhere else.

Her first instinct was to bite and escape, but Juliet was a good dog. She had control over herself and she didn’t just react, she thought first. New Man Harold had taken her to a place she had been before, but it took her a moment to remember because she was seeing it from a different side. It was the place covered in Bad Things to keep demons out. The place where Dean and Moose Winchester had helped her master to stop poisoning himself with human blood. She had never been inside, but she had watched them take her master inside and had waited for him until he came back out. She had waited at the place where the car went in and back out, but she was now with New Man Harold at a person-sized door.

New Man Harold rapped his fist against the door. The sound was loud in the quiet early morning, booming over bird songs. It took a moment after that, but that’s when it hit her. Her master was nearby and coming closer. He had been so far away for so long, but somehow he was inside the Winchester place and coming back to her.

The door opened and Juliet was all set to jump up and lick her master’s face until she saw him. That wasn’t her master’s face. That was beer/cars/gunpowder Dean and there was no demon inside his meat. Juliet looked closer, just to be sure, but there was no demon smoke inside him. It was just him, but he felt like her master had felt.

Well then, she had a mystery to solve. Juliet was good at mysteries. She would listen and learn and find out the truth. She followed Dean who felt like her master down the stairs and eventually into a room full of books. The room smelled like Moose. She sat in a corner, her back to the walls, and listened.

Dean was accompanied by coffee/old books Moose and sunshine/magic/the-smell-before-it-rains angel-man Castiel. New Man Harold stank of fear, but he explained things to the other three so Juliet had very little to puzzle over. Granted, there were words that meant nothing to Juliet, but the parts she understood fit together. Her master — the one who had taught her everything since before she could manifest a physical form — was gone. He had left her and given her away to beer/cars/gunpowder Dean along with everything he owned.

She wasn’t sure whether to be insulted at being treated like a thing or grateful to have had a master who cared about making sure she wasn’t forgotten. The group sat at a table talking about her master’s— her former master’s things, deciding what was good and what wasn’t. Nobody had mentioned her. Angel-man Castiel’s eyes kept tracking her every time she moved, but the Winchesters didn’t seem to know she was there.

Juliet was young by hellhound standards. Before her, there had been another ‘hound belonging to her master. She knew she had been chosen to replace that ‘hound when he died. She wasn’t good at time, so she didn’t know how long it had been, but she knew she was young. She thought it was forgivable, then, that she was also still unfamiliar with emotions expressed by meat bodies. Demon smoke forms were easy to read, practically instinctive, but meat bodies with their infinite expressions on meat faces were difficult. She had watched and learned what she could and still only knew the ones her master had used often.

Dean was something a little different. Dean’s expressions were clear. He stood and got loud, he sat down in his chair and put his face in his hand. He was upset about something. Well, Juliet was upset about something, too. For the first time since entering the book room, she left her corner and stalked over to Dean’s side. They were talking about contracts and souls, which was usually Juliet’s favourite subject, but not this time.

Even though he wasn’t the master who had held her safe with red smoke when she was too young to have a body, he still felt a little bit the same. He felt like someone who cared more than he should. Juliet wanted him to feel better. Nosing his free hand, she licked his fingers and waited for him to smile. The scream as he jumped out of his chair was not at all what she had expected.


	3. Chapter 3

"What the fuck was that?!" Dean spun around on his heel, hands out like a wannabe kung-fu master, until his brain kicked into gear and he pulled out Ruby's knife from inside his jacket. But there was nothing there. But he _knew_ he had felt _something_ —

"Dean!" Cas warned. "Wait!"

"Dean?" Sam got up and stood just behind Dean, peering over his shoulder. "What?"

"That's the other part of your inheritance," Newman chirped up. "Juliet."

Juliet. Why did that name—

There was some slight panting from just beyond Dean's chair.

Oh Jesus Fucking _Christ._

"A hellhound?! Are you telling me Crowley left me a fucking _hellhound_?!" Dean whirled around and yanked Newman up by the collar of his shirt. "There's been a fucking _murder beast_ just _walking around_ and you didn't think to mention it?!"

"To be fair," Cas said, coming over and placing himself practically between Dean and the demon until Dean released him, "she's been very well behaved."

Dean rounded on Cas. "Wait, _you knew_?!" What the ever-loving _fuck_.

A growling sound came from behind him. Dean turned to find Sam backing away slowly, palms up. "Ok, no problem," he seemed to be saying to thin air.

Dean's grip on the knife tightened and the growling intensified, but this time he was sure it was directed at him. He let the knife point towards the floor and a more contented yip escaped the ugly mutt. Well, he assumed it was an ugly mutt. It was a _hellhound_ , one that apparently _no one_ thought it was important to mention, not even _Cas_ —

"Cas, you got thirty seconds to explain why you let it—" A growl. "—fine, _her_ into the Bunker without warning."

If Dean were in a charitable mood, which he most certainly was _not_ at this point—for fuck's sake, _what the hell_ —he might have given Cas some credit for looking thoroughly confused and almost hurt by Dean's reaction.

"Demons often have hellhounds that accompany them. You never objected before."

"What?!" both Sam and Dean exclaimed in near sync.

Awesome. He and Cas were going to have a nice, long chat about what constituted as need-to-know information (spoiler alert: that list would include every goddamn supernatural creature that could tear them apart with half a thought, _especially_ if they were fucking _invisible_ ). Oh and he was never leaving home without those holy oil glasses again.

Jesus.

Fucking.

Christ.

Dean felt his brain spin and his mouth drop open a little but nothing beyond another string of obscenities came to his lips and so he closed his mouth. There was soft scritching against the hardwood floors and then that cold nose was in his palm again. He flinched, swallowed deeply, but stood his ground. Juliet let out a little whine, a low keening noise that also smelled a little of sulphur. Dean was surprised he hadn't noticed the scent before, or maybe he had just assumed it was from Newman.

"I think she wants you to pet her," Cas said with an odd tilt of his head and squint to his eyes that was the equivalent of him belly-laughing. That fucker.

Cautiously, Dean reached his palm out in what he assumed was Juliet's general direction. There was nothing there, and so he moved it a little, back and forth, like he was looking for a lightswitch in the dark.

"To your left," Cas supplied. "And higher."

Suddenly his hand collided with a solid flank of coarse fur at about the height of his hip. "Cas, uh, how big is she?"

"Currently, standing, she's at about chest height. I imagine her head would be much higher if she were sitting."

"Oh, fucking fantastic." He smiled a little hysterically and Sam's eyes grew wide. Juliet, it seemed, took pity on him stumbling around and finally nosed her head into his hand and he gave her a few quick pats. "Uh, good dog."

"Well," Newman piped up from the table, shuffling through his papers once more, "I just need you to sign the transfers of ownership, the waivers on the claims to Hell and other properties such as the Moon, and—"

"Sammy?" Dean said, letting his hand fall and standing incredibly still.

Cas still seemed annoyingly calm about this whole shitshow and a half, so Dean assumed he wasn't in any immediate danger from Miss Cujo. But that didn't mean he was going to let his guard down. Luckily, his brother understood his request immediately and took the documents from Newman. No sense letting that almost-complete Stanford pre-law degree and big brain of his go to waste.

"Stay," he told Juliet (presumably; he could have been telling the fucking chair to stay for all he knew), then he turned to Cas. "I'm getting the glasses. You're in charge of her 'til I'm back."

"Of course." There was a displeased grumbling from invisi-dog, but Cas merely turned his somber stare on her. "That was rude."

Juliet snarled a little.

"Hey," Dean said firmly. "Be nice to Cas."

The hellhound snorted like she was rolling her eyes—could hellhounds roll their eyes?—but there was no more snarling, which Dean took as a good sign. He jogged down the halls towards the garage, and in a few minutes, he'd retrieved the two pairs of oil-scorched glasses they kept in the Impala.

He was more relieved than he would have liked to admit when he returned to the library to find everyone in one piece. Sam and Newman were going over the fine print of the legal bullshit and Juliet was pacing around the library, apparently taking in her surroundings. His heart stilled a beat when he saw her, every instinct in him screaming to draw a weapon, but when she caught sight of him, she paused and he could have sworn her tail actually _wagged_ a little before she went back to investigating some corner behind a bookshelf.

How was this his life?

"Here," he said to Sam as he rejoined them at the table.

Sam took the glasses, put them on, then looked around the room. "Oh wow."

"No shit."

They'd seen hellhounds before, but never one in this kind of setting, and never one for very long. Usually, it was a rush of blurry beast coming at them with glowing red eyes before one of them—Sam, actually, in both cases—killed the damn thing. And now they had one just trotting around the library like she was settling in.

Wait. _Like_ she was settling in?

No, that was _exactly_ what she was doing. Because he was her master now. He, Dean Fucking Winchester, owned a _hellhound_.

Why couldn't he just have inherited the Moon?

If he ever met Crowley in the afterlife, he was gonna punch him in the face. So hard.

Sam managed to recover first and slid a stack of papers and a pen over to Dean. "I read them. Cas, too. These are the ones you need to sign."

Dean eyed the pen, a cheap Bic with some motel name printed on it. "What, no blood? Not asking for my first born kid?"

"It's not a soul deal," Newman answered. "Regular ink will be fine."

He hated this whole situation and had no desire to sign a damn thing, but he still almost felt a little disappointed that there wasn't some fancy flourish. On the other hand, Crowley probably would have been even _more_ disappointed by how completely mundane and uncultured the whole thing was _(You have no sense of class, Squirrel, honestly...)_ , and so Dean grinned a little to himself—served the bastard right, may he rest in whatever not-peace demons ended up in—and took the pen from his brother's hand.

He didn't sign right away; he might not have been a brainiac like his brother, but he wasn't no dummy, either. Some of the words and convoluted legal phrases made his eyes glaze over, but he pushed through, reading the document line by line just to make sure he wasn't getting screwed over. Well, no more than he already was.

"What happens if I don't sign?" he asked once he reached the bottom of the last page, having only had to stop to ask Sam and Cas questions a few times, a fact of which he was rather proud.

Newman pushed his glasses back up his nose. "Well, everything would revert back to Hell and whoever claims the throne." He paused, then looked in the direction of Juliet, who had since curled up in a massive heap by Dean's chair; Dean wondered if he should fear for his ankles. "Juliet, however, might be a different situation. The bond between master and hellhound isn't a legal matter in the same sense."

Great. So he was stuck with Lady Fang.

"Who has taken the throne?" Cas asked. He was still standing in fairly close proximity to the demon lawyer and his stern expression hadn't changed.  

Newman shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "No one, as of yet. There are rumors and factions, but…"

Sam turned to Dean, saying in an undertone, "We can't let this stuff get claimed by someone else. And some of these contracts—" He pulled one out from a pile to his right. "Look, she was twenty-three, sold her soul to get her family out of a refugee camp. We can make a difference, Dean."

Dean took the contract and skimmed through the first paragraph. Even the legalese couldn't hide the girl's innocence and desperation. "Fine."

By the time he finished signing, dating, and initialing, the cheap Bic was out of ink. Dean sat back, stunned and flexing his cramped hand, as Newman packed up his papers and bid them all good day.

"I need a drink," he said as the Bunker door closed again.

From the floor, Juliet whuffed out an agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We know that the first two chapters overlapped and covered a lot of the same ground, just to get our characters all into place. Starting with this chapter, though, each chapter will move the plot forward and will pick up where the previous left off. So, if you had any worries about reading the same fic essentially twice, just from two different POVs, never fear. :)


	4. Chapter 4

Juliet’s new master was a pup. A blind, untrained pup who couldn’t even pet her properly. His palace was cluttered with things which left very little space in which to run. His advisor — Juliet had to assume the angel-man Castiel was his advisor, the way he answered Dean’s questions — had more authority than any advisor should have, but he seemed to understand her much better than Dean could. At least Moose hadn’t threatened to kill her.

New Man Harold gathered his things and left, leaving Juliet alone with two mortals who couldn’t even see her without wearing glass on their faces, and an angel who oddly didn’t seem to loathe her on sight. She wanted her master back— her proper master, not some blind meatsuit who forgot how to be a demon.

For the briefest moment, she watched beer/cars/gunpowder Dean, and everything about him, from his slumped stance to his gruff voiced desire for a drink, reminded her of the master who had left her here. She agreed with him, more for something to say than anything. It wasn’t like he could actually understand her.

Come to think of it, that was something she could do. Leaping into the nearest shadow, Juliet crossed the boundary between worlds, taking the shortcut to Hell. Her former master’s office hadn’t yet been packed up — she refused to allow it — so she knew exactly where to find his prized Scotch. If he truly had given everything to Dean, he wouldn’t mind if she delivered the bottle he kept on hand.

When she returned, it was to the Winchesters and their angel arguing. Something about "how does something that big go missing?!" She took great delight in their faces when she set the bottle down on the floor.

"Uh, Dean?" said Moose. "I think she brought you a present."

Dean ran a hand over his face. "Yeah, I can see that, Sam. The question is, how?"

The Castiel angel-man rolled his eyes, something Juliet desperately wished she could do. "Hellhounds routinely travel between Hell and the mortal realm. Juliet can come and go as she pleases. Evidently she heard you and decided to bring you a drink."

Of all the— Why hadn’t she been left to the angel who actually seemed to understand her? Right. Angel. Still, he wasn’t like the other angels at all. To confirm his words, Juliet leaned low and nudged the bottle forward a little with her nose.

"Huh," said Dean, and he cautiously crept closer until he could reach the bottle. "Well, uh, thanks?"

Her new master had a lot to learn. She shoved her head under the hand not holding the bottle, ignoring his surprised yelp. He ran his hand down and gave her side a brief pat. "Good dog."

It would have been a good time to roll her eyes if she could have. She settled for a snort, then left him with his Scotch. There were more rooms in her new master’s palace, and she had only explored one. Whether she was happy with him or not, her job was to guarantee his safety, and for that, she needed to become familiar with the place. Picking a direction at random, she set off.

Her new master had been about to pour a glass of Scotch, but when she started walking away, he called after her, "Woah woah woah, wait a minute. Uh, stop. Juliet!"

She pointedly ignored him until he used her name. Training her new master was going to be more difficult than she had anticipated. Turning to face him, she barked once, just to let him know everything was alright. She was half gratified and half disappointed when he flinched.

Expecting the angel to explain, she was surprised when Moose was the one to say, "Dean, she probably just wants to explore the Bunker. You know, see where she’s supposed to be living. You’d do the same thing in her place."

Dean hesitated a moment, then finished pouring his drink. Putting the stopper back in the bottle, he stared at her, then said, "Fine. You can look around, but don’t touch anything. I can’t believe I’m talkin’ to a goddamn mutt."

A mutt?! Oh no, she couldn’t let that stand. Juliet came from a long line of proud hunters descended from the First ‘Hound. She growled a warning at him.

"What? You’re offended by that? How the hell did I end up with a dog who can fucking understand me, but I can’t even fucking see it? Her. Whatever." He took a gulp of his Scotch, exhaled slowly, and said, "Fine, I’m sorry. You’re not a mutt."

She would have given an inch of her tail to be able to roll her eyes at that sad excuse for an apology, but it would have to do. Deliberately, she turned away from him and followed the hallway to the first open door. He might not have been taking her seriously, but she meant to know every corner of her new home by nightfall.

_ _ _

By the time Juliet had explored all she could explore without touching anything, she was concerned. The building was all corridors that looked the same, with so many doors. She had an unerring sense of direction, but she had passed the same door three times. The entire place was imbued with strong magic, strong enough to overpower most other smells unless she was in the room with them. She wasn’t sure whether it was a problem or not. If her master lived there and knew about it, fine, but it could have been something new.

It was a complicated thought, and one she might have had trouble explaining even to her old master, who had properly understood her. She had to try, though. After only two wrong turns, she managed to find her way back to the books room, where all three of them were still at the table with the contracts. Two plates had nothing left but crumbs of bread, and two empty mugs smelled like coffee.

Dean and Moose had removed their face glass things and were reading contracts. Castiel could have seen her, but he was reading contracts, too. To get their attention, she walked over and put a paw on the table, careful not to damage any of the contracts. Dean and Moose were both visibly startled, but Castiel only looked up.

Letting out a breath, Dean reached for his face glass. "Dammit, Juliet! Gonna hafta put a bell on you or somethin’." 

She tilted her head to one side and whined an inquiry. For some reason that made him chuckle. It would have been nice to see him smile if she hadn’t been there on a serious matter. Having captured his attention, she crossed over to the nearest wall and scratched at it, barking the sign she had been taught for danger.

Moose and Castiel stared at her, frowning. Dean laughed and said, "What is it, Lassie? Did Timmy fall down the well?"

"I dunno, Dean," said Moose, "I think she’s trying to tell us something about the Bunker."

Juliet repeated her danger sign and batted the wall again. Thankfully, the angel seemed to grasp her intent. He peered at the wall, then said, "I think she can sense the Bunker’s warding. It probably hasn’t decided if she’s friend or foe yet."

Dean scoffed. "You say that like it’s alive."

"I’ll be sure to let you know when I figure that out," replied Castiel.

Warding. Juliet knew what warding was. It was like no warding she had ever seen, but at least that made sense. But if the warding didn’t know how to treat her, that didn’t say good things about how her new master viewed her. Maybe he just needed time.

Forcing herself to relax, Juliet curled up on the floor beside Dean’s chair. Hunting for her dinner could wait awhile. In the meantime, she could afford to do nothing for awhile. She listened to the three of them remark on how she had followed their conversation, speculating whether she knew something more than they knew about their "Bunker". Their talk gradually drifted back to the contracts on the table. She closed her eyes and dozed a little, as much as a ‘hound could.


	5. Chapter 5

It took a few hours of reading through mind-numbing contracts—for now, they sorted them into "innocent" (like their refugee girl), "guilty" (Dean wasn't even surprised how many politicians and CEOs made it into that pile), and "deal with now" piles (some innocent, some guilty—all with their contracts about to expire)—and several tumblers of Crowley's Scotch (Dean was looking forward to inheriting the rest of the stash; or maybe he could get Juliet to pop over to Scotland for a bottle whenever he needed one) to finally come to terms with the events of the day.

The contracts were a huge task and Dean could see this occupying days and weeks of his time, but in a weird way, this was just another job for them. More legal terms than salt rounds, but similar principles.

Sam eventually retreated to his room, taking his laptop and the itemized list of goods from Crowley's various caches around the world. Probably called it "light reading." Nerd. Dean knew it'd officially been a long day, though, when Cas stopped reading, rested his elbows on the table, and rubbed his eyelids with the tips of his fingers.

The "guilty" pile between him and Cas caught Dean's eye and a thought occurred to him, one that had been hovering on the edges of his mind until now. He glanced down to the floor beside him where Juliet dozed.

"Hey, Cas?" Dean leaned forward, keeping his voice low so as not to wake up the hellhound. "The guilties...when it's time to collect, does that mean…?"

Cas frowned, but nodded. "I would assume that's what her job was when Crowley was her master."

Dean repressed a shudder. It'd been years, but that didn't mean he'd forgotten what it was like to have hellhounds tear him apart. Instead of dwelling, he reached out to pour himself another glass of Scotch. Cas stopped him, though; his hand wrapped around Dean's on the bottle. They stayed that way for a second, having a silent battle of wills, before Dean relented and Cas put the bottle on the other side of the table.

"Killjoy," he muttered.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

Cas didn't answer right away. He looked at Dean, studying him with concerned eyes. "Are you ok?"

"Fine and dandy." Of course, that didn't get him anywhere, and Cas just fixed him with a look. Dean sighed. "It's a lot, ok? I'm dealing."

Cas nodded. "You should probably sleep."

Dean couldn't argue with that. "What about you?"

"I don't need to sleep."

Dean rolled his eyes. "I _know_ that. But you're not gonna stare at these fucking contracts all night. Take a break, man."

Cas' gaze drifted off almost wistfully. "I think there are new episodes of _Orange is the New Black_ available now."

"Good choice," Dean said, half-amused and half-confused. He had no idea why Cas was remembering the show as fondly as he seemed to be—last he knew, that hadn't been a good time for Cas, unless the dude'd been catching up on shows post-Lucifer and Amara. Who knew: maybe he and Crowley had been on a binge while they were road-tripping around. Dean shook his head, pushing away the ridiculous thought. Clearly, he was over-tired.

"It's compelling." Cas neatened the pile of contracts before him—an unsorted stack that would have to wait until morning—and stood up. "I don't have a laptop—"

"You can have mine," he blurted out, probably a little too quickly. He stood up, too, nearly tripping over Juliet, who nipped at his ankle. "Jesus!"

But Juliet's jaws had barely touched him and she simply got up, shook herself, and took a turn around the table. She sat on her haunches and Dean realized just how utterly fucked he was; Cas had been right: this hell beast was practically eye level with him. She cocked her head, as if waiting for an order, but he didn't have any for her beyond 'please don't eat me.'

"Uh, are you hungry?"

Juliet stood up again and nuzzled his hand.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'. Ok, I'm gonna get Cas my laptop, then we'll figure out...food." He really didn't want to think about what a hellhound ate when they weren't chomping down on contract victims. "Just, um, stay here, Juliet. I'll be back."

If a hellhound could look less than pleased, Juliet managed it, but she didn't follow them as they went down the hall towards the bedrooms.

"Christ, Cas," he said once he was sure (hopeful) they were out of earshot, "what the fuck am I supposed to do with a hellhound?"

Cas shook his head. "I don't know. She seems loyal, though. Crowley must have trained her well."

"Small favors," Dean grumbled before laughing with more than a note of hysteria. "Shit, could you imagine, trying to housebreak a _hellhound_? What, like take her to obedience school? 'No, ma'am, not a Great Dane, this here's a purebred hellhound. We just wanna be able to take her on walks 'round the neighborhood. Get her used to playing with other dogs.'"

Cas stopped and peered at Dean, tilting his head in that way of his. "Are you drunk?"

"I wish."

They resumed walking, stopping after a moment outside Dean's door. He opened it, then flipped open his laptop, quickly deleting his browser and Netflix history. They'd set up Cas his own profile, but still…

"Just, uh, don't go poking around too much," Dean said as he unplugged the computer and handed it and the cord to Cas.

Cas rolled his eyes as he accepted it. "I'm well aware of your porn stash, Dean."

"Dude, that's not—" Except that it totally was. Except that there might or might not have been more than Busty Asian Beauties in there. It was bad enough when _God_ went through his porn, but there was some stuff in there that Dean was fairly confident would raise some questions from Cas, questions he wasn't ready to answer.

He could feel the heat rising up the back of his neck and his heartbeat picking up speed like he was a goddamn teenager as Cas regarded him, far too calmly and intently, from a distance that had precisely fuck all to do with socially acceptable personal space. Dean was also extremely aware that their hands were still touching because he hadn't let go of the stupid laptop because he was an awkward idiot like that and—

Suddenly, there was about a metric fuckton of growling invisible dog in between them, forcing them apart.

"Whoa, Juliet! Sit, girl! What the fuck!"

Cas just frowned at the hellhound before looking between her and Dean. "I think she thought you were distressed or in danger."

Dean wished he could bash his head against the wall or sink into the floor in embarrassment. Never a black hole when he needed one.

"Dammit, Juliet. That's not—" He took a breath and then said, as calmly as he could, "Juliet, I'm fine. Cas is fine. He's a friend, not a threat."

Juliet relented, reluctantly, then slunk back out into the hall. Neither Cas nor Dean missed the look she gave Cas as she went.

"Sorry, Cas."

Cas didn't seem all that bothered, which Dean was weirdly thankful about. Because wouldn't _that_ have been the icing on the crap cake that is their lives (his life): several rounds of the Apocalypse, Heaven and Hell and Purgatory, possession, a few more deaths and resurrections than was probably normal—yeah, that was all fine, but no, it was _Malicious Marley and Me_ that broke the camel's back and made Cas peace the fuck out.

But he didn't, and Dean breathed a little easier as Cas gave what amounted to a shrug.

"I'm an angel, she's a hellhound. She's bound to see me as dangerous." Cas looked down at his hands, holding the laptop and cable. "I'll just… Good night, Dean."

"Yeah, good night," he exhaled.

"If you need me, you know where to find me."

And with that, Cas retreated down the hall to his own room, like that was the kind of shit that happened to them all the time, like it was normal for Cas to stick around and just _be_ there when Dean needed him. Dean watched him go, resisting the urge to call him back or follow him.

Juliet came back into the room and even through the blurriness of the holy oil glasses, Dean could tell she was on edge.

"Come on, let's get you some food."

He stalked out of the room, the hellhound practically bounding along behind him—the hallways weren't really wide enough for them to walk next to each other. He was walking in the general direction of the kitchen when he realized that she wasn't some labradoodle or even a fucking pitbull. He seriously doubted Crowley fed her Kibbles 'n Bits or even steaks or whatever. Pausing in the middle of the hallway, he turned to Juliet, about to ask her a question, when he realized what a fucking stupid idea that was. She couldn't _talk_.

"Um, Juliet." What was he even _doing_ … "If you understand me, raise your right paw."

Juliet's eyes dulled a little less red as if telling him he was the biggest fucking idiot in the world, then she raised her right paw and set it back down.

"Ok. Good. Um, do you hunt? Animals, not humans. Raise your paw again for 'yes', keep it down for 'no'."

Her paw raised again.

"Alright, here's the deal: I'm going to take you outside, let you hunt." Juliet's tail wagged. "But," he said, firmly. The tail stilled. "You can't hunt humans, you can't hunt people's pets. Wildlife only. Do you understand?"

She lifted her paw, then yipped in what he hoped was excitement, even if it made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Dean resumed down the hall, but instead of turning right at the next junction to go to the kitchen, he went left, past the bathrooms, to circle them back to the library. He and Sam still fought about the best ways to get around the Bunker's maze of hallways, but if there was one thing that Dean knew, it was the quickest way to and from the kitchen.

Juliet nearly bowled him over when he opened up the Bunker door, but she stopped and waited for him at the top of the hill by the factory, as if asking if he'd be joining her. His stomach rolled at the thought.

"There's woods over there," he said, indicating with the Coleman lantern he'd remembered to grab on the way out. "I'll wait here. I'm tired, though. Don't stay out too long."

Juliet tilted her head, then bounded off towards the trees. Dean followed a little at a slower pace, but stopped a good fifty feet from the edge. There wasn't much out this way in Lebanon—hell, there wasn't much of Lebanon, period—so the air was fairly still except for the rustling of leaves and the faint chirping of crickets.

Exhausted, Dean flopped to the ground and set the lantern beside him before resting his elbows on his knees. If he didn't have a hellhound running around out there, he might have shut off the light to better see the stars. With so little light pollution and such a wide vista, the night sky was usually pretty fucking fantastic. There'd been more than a few nights over the years when he and Sam, or one or the other, had just come out here with a few beers. Actually, there were a few second-hand beach chairs on top of the factory roof that Dean had picked up from a garage sale for just that reason.

In the distance, he thought he could hear some barking and snapping of tree branches. He tried not to think too hard about it. Instead, he took out his phone and checked his messages. None, of course. Maybe for once no news was good news. His thumb hovered over the message thread for his mom and he contemplated shooting her a text just to make sure she was ok on her hunt. But, he thought better of it and returned the phone to his pocket. That didn't last long, though, and boredom crept in. This time, he settled for some stupid puzzle game that Claire had sent him.

He was just about to finally beat level 38 and get the green bedazzle award, or whatever the fuck it was called, when a sharp, coppery smell made him sit up. Juliet was returning to him, loping along the dry grass and dirt. She was holding something in her jaws and he sincerely hoped it wasn't someone's cat.

Nope, it was a rabbit. And she dropped it at his feet.

He tried to school his face into something _not_ grossed out because he really did not want to know what Juliet would do if she thought he was upset with her. "That's, uh… Good job, Juliet. You can have it. Thanks, though."

Juliet stared at him for a moment, then bent down and snatched up the rabbit, crunching through it with relish. Dean looked away, but in a moment, it was over. He got up as she licked her muzzle clean and then sat in front of him again, like she had in the library. He rubbed a hand over his jaw.

"Shit. What the hell am I doing?"

Of course, Juliet didn't answer. She leaned forward and down, nosing his palm again. He still wasn't entirely sure what she meant by it, but he let her do it and just prayed he wouldn't come out of the deal a few fingers shy. She gave him that low, keening noise again when he didn't respond except to stiffen a little at her touch, and suddenly he realized that this must have been a hard day for her, too.

Goddammit. Now he was feeling bad for a hellhound.

"You miss Crowley, huh, don't you?"

Juliet didn't raise a paw, but nuzzled his hand again. He pet her between the ears. Her fur was coarse and thick, somehow like a dog's but also somehow entirely different. He could almost feel the otherworldliness of her, like strong static or something.

"Yeah, me, too."

He frowned as he said it, surprised by the sentiment. But, there it was. Crowley had been such a fucking sonofabitch, but Dean thought he might just miss the bastard. As much as Dean hated to admit it—and he was pretty sure Crowley had felt the same—they'd kinda gotten each other, in a really weird way. And Crowley had come through for them, more than once.

That still didn't change the fact that Dean was still royally pissed at the smarmy asshole for all this shit. But then again, that was nothing new either: they were always pissed at each other over something. It was kinda their thing.

He sighed and shoved his hand in his pocket, bending to pick up the lantern off the ground with the other. Juliet followed him back to the Bunker without him even having to tell her, which Dean was absurdly grateful for. It wasn't like he could really stop her if she tried to leave, or did leave—hell, she'd zapped out earlier today just to go on a booze run for him—but he still didn't like the idea of a hellhound that was supposedly on his watch running free in the middle of Kansas.

When he made it back inside and to his room, he realized he had no idea what the fuck to do with a giant demon dog for the night. Did she sleep? She'd dozed or whatever earlier, but was that just for appearance's sake or had she really needed the rest? Before he could come up with a solution, though, Juliet trotted past him and through the open door to the bedroom and claimed a spot on the floor at the foot of his bed, facing the door, presumably to counter any threats.

Oh. Well, that worked, then.

Guess he had his very own attack dog while he slept.

Assuming he slept tonight.

He sighed, scrubbed a hand down his face, and started shucking boots and jeans and flannel.

Even though he expected to toss and turn all night, weariness won out. Dean tucked Ruby's knife under his pillow and was asleep before he even finished mumbling, "G'night, Juliet."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (There may or may not be an Easter egg for Thayer's SPN Canon Big Bang, "[Always Stuck in Second Gear](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11146536/chapters/24868941)" in this chapter...)


	6. Chapter 6

Time had little meaning in Juliet’s new master’s palace — Moose called it a "bunker", whatever that was — but she was accustomed to that. Time moved differently in Hell, faster in some places and slower in others, so she had never much thought about how long anything took. Her new master settled in to sleep, so she would guard him for however long he was helpless.

Granted, he seemed mostly helpless even when he was awake and alert. He could barely look at a fresh kill, he had trouble discerning the difference between a threat and a friend (though Juliet was also somewhat confused where the angel was concerned), and he couldn’t even see her. Her former master had been very good at staying alive, but Dean couldn’t even leave his meat form. She would have to keep him safe until he could be properly trained.

She missed her old familiar life. Nothing was like it used to be anymore. Mostly, she missed having someone who understood her. The only one who came close to understanding her in the "bunker" was an angel who was maybe an ally and maybe a threat. She missed being wanted.

She could have gone back to Hell — back to the kennel with a litter of pups who would pull her tail when she wasn’t looking, and back to kennel master Connall who was too busy to spend much time with her — but that wouldn’t have felt right. As strange as it seemed, she was where she was meant to be. Maybe it would just take time to get used to it?

At whatever rate, time passed. Juliet spent her time on the floor of her master’s room thinking about her situation. He had an impressive array of weapons in his private quarters, so there was hope for him yet. However much of a threat the angel was, he hadn’t tried to harm Juliet yet, so she was willing to wait and see which way he would go. Moose hadn’t even so much as threatened Juliet after their initial misunderstanding, so it was possible she had misjudged him. As bad as things were, they could have been worse.

Though her master moved in his sleep, it was mostly small movements. She soon learned to ignore him when he rolled over or softly muttered things. Eventually, he groaned, sat up, and stood out of bed. She watched silently as he put on fresh clothing and put his talking phone box thing in his pocket. She was watching him and so she probably should have realized he was going to walk into her and trip, but she had forgotten just how _blind_ her new pup master was.

Juliet yelped and snarled when he tripped over her. For his part, he stumbled backwards and snatched up his face glass things so he could see her, all the while saying, "Oh fuck! Dammit, sorry, Juliet, I forgot you were there. Fucking fuck."

No harm done, but he needed a reminder. Though it was sometimes convenient, she was tired of people forgetting about her existence. She whuffed at him, then got to her feet and waited for him to open the door. She probably could have opened it on her own, given time, but he didn’t need to know that just yet.

Following him down the hall, he stopped abruptly in front of a door and turned to face her. "Uh, Juliet, there’s, uh, some things I’d rather you not watch me do, so if you could just, uh, wait out here for a bit until I come out? Yeah, thanks. I’ll be, uh, I’ll be back in a few."

Again with the forbidden spaces. The only place her former master had barred her from was the throne room, and that was only because she had destroyed a contract when she was too young to know better. When she was older and properly trained, she was allowed to sit at her master’s side at all times, like a good ‘hound should. Granted, there had been times when she wasn’t needed, but that was because her former master had been _the_ most powerful demon in Hell. Her new master wasn’t even a demon. Trapped in his meat form as he was, if he got hurt — and chances were high that he would because meat forms were fragile — he would need her protection.

Waiting impatiently outside the door, she watched to make sure nobody else entered. She could hear water sounds, and wondered what he could possibly be doing with water that was such a secret. Juliet was a good dog, though, and would follow her master’s instructions, even if they made no sense.

By the time the water sounds stopped, the smell of coffee wafted through the bunker palace. Beer/cars/gunpowder Dean emerged with wet hair and slightly damp skin, smelling more like Scotch, gunpowder, and some sweet fruity smell. The Scotch was a gradual thing that had begun when Juliet had fetched the bottle for him — which she rather liked — but the fruity smell was new. Apparently the water room changed his scent. Juliet didn’t like it.

He spotted her sitting right where he had left her and stopped abruptly. "You are _so_ not like a regular dog and that’s gonna take a lot of getting used to. Uh, good girl. Wanna go get some breakfast?"

She barked to agree and he only startled a bit. It was progress. With her master leading the way, they went to what must have been the food room. She had seen it briefly before when she had gone exploring, but now Moose and angel-man Castiel were seated at a table with coffee and contracts. Before she entered the room, their talk had been about "efficient use of resources", but both immediately stopped upon seeing her master.

Heading straight for the coffee, her master didn’t ask why they had gone silent. Juliet was more curious. If the three of them were going to act like equals, she should probably treat them as such. Walking over to stand directly beside the table, she sat and looked Moose in the eyes, then tilted her head and whined.

"Dean, you think she might need to go outside?"

Of course he misunderstood. With a snort meant to discount his response, she instead turned to face the angel, who was already regarding her intently.

Behind her, Dean swallowed a sip of coffee, then said, "Yeah, doofus, what she said. I’d ask if you’ve eaten, but I’m gonna bet you’d say no. I’m gonna make bacon and eggs."

Dean and Moose talked back and forth about food, the proper ways to cook and not ruin things, and why Moose wasn’t allowed to make food there anymore. Still, Castiel stared at her curiously, though he didn’t quite meet her eyes. Finally, he looked away and went back to the contracts without a word. Juliet was sure he was avoiding an explanation, and that he knew exactly what she had been asking.

Before long, the room began to fill with the smell of cooking meat. Her new master hummed a song of some sort while he worked. It was nothing like what she was used to, but it wasn’t exactly _bad_ , just different. It just so happened that _everything_ was different. Juliet curled up on the floor beside the table and ignored the meat smell. She was a good dog, and good dogs don’t beg for food, they wait.

Her master went from humming to singing, while Moose finally started talking again, "I still think they all deserve to know they don’t have to look over their shoulders anymore."

"That’s why we’ll mail the pieces of their torn apart contract with a note explaining the situation," replied Castiel.

From where he stood, Dean asked, "What're you guys talkin’ about?"

"It’s these international contracts," Moose explained. "We can’t possibly visit everyone around the world whose contract is getting torn up. We can swing by the ones here in the States, deliver the pieces and let them know what’s what, but logistically, that’s it. Cas says we should just mail the rest."

Torn up? Contracts were going to be torn up? Oh no, not on her watch. Juliet stood, lifted a paw, and set it down on the pile of contracts while snarling.

Moose leaned back a little and said, "Or not. I mean, plans can change, right?"

"No Sam," said Castiel (Cas?) "I think she’s upset that we’re talking about destroying contracts."

Juliet barked to confirm his words. Dean looked from her to the contracts and back again. "Well, it makes sense. Those things’re her job, right? I’ll bet there’s serious rules protecting ‘em down in Hell. Thing is, we’re not in Hell now, and they belong to me, so I can do whatever I damn well please with them."

That…was not what she had expected to hear. Her new master was the one who wanted the contracts destroyed? Tentatively, she lifted her foot and whined.

"That’s right," he said, "leave ‘em to us. Don’t worry, you’ll still get to do…whatever it is you do to the bad ones. We’re just gonna make sure the nice ones don’t hafta suffer just ‘cause they had to make a tough choice."

Bad ones? Nice ones? There was a difference? There had never been a difference before, just people who needed to die so she could take their souls to Hell. Now that she thought of it, though, there were some who her old master had allowed to buy their souls back. Hmm… 

It was a complicated thought. Juliet sank back down to the floor to think about it. Her new master paused a moment, then turned back to the cooking meat. "Alright, then. Let’s table that discussion ‘til after breakfast."

Juliet didn’t follow what happened after that. She was too busy thinking about bad people and nice people. She did notice when a Moose hand reached under the table to offer her cooked pig meat, though. Maybe Moose had potential, too.


	7. Chapter 7

They moved into the library post-breakfast (and Dean wasn't blind: he totally saw Sam slip Juliet some bacon—kid was either going to spoil the hellhound or was in for a real wake up call when he remembered she wasn't a freaking corgi or whatever) and it only took them a few hours to go through the rest of the contracts. For a dude who'd been out of directly running the Crossroads for years, Crowley'd had a lot of soul business still going on.

Juliet seemed content to wander around the Bunker and library, although she would still stop and sniff or paw at some of the warding. What she thought of it, Dean had no fucking clue; he wasn't exactly fluent in hellhound—a fact she seemed determined to remind him of at every opportunity, whether it was through indignant whuffing or ignoring him until he used her name in a command or nipping at their ankles every time they tripped over her (or came close to doing so). He and Sam wore their glasses, but they did exactly zilch for peripheral vision. Dean made a mental note to always wear his boots, even if he was pretty sure even the steel-toed variety would be no match for a hellhound. It made him feel better, at least.

He, Cas, and Sam eventually sat back in their chairs and stared at the three stacks of contracts. Sam, of course, also had opened his laptop and had made a damn spreadsheet, with color-coordination and alphabetization and "conditional formatting"—whatever the hell that meant.

"So, now what?" Dean asked at last. He picked up his coffee mug, only to find it had betrayed him and was, in fact, empty. Story of his fucking life.

"I think," Cas said, sitting forward to rest his forearms on the edge of the table, "we should address some of these innocent ones, the ones whose contracts are due soon."

Dean breathed a little easier. He wasn't sure he was ready to deal with the guilties, no matter how fucked up they were. "Yeah. Makes sense. Who's up first?"

Sam picked up the stack, riffled through it, then pulled out one that had a pink Post-It flagging it with a scrawled note that Dean could only decipher because he'd seen enough of his brother's handwriting over the years. "Matthew Tolland. Should be easy. And he's in Colorado."

Dean took the contract, reading Sam's note and skimming the first few lines. Seventy-four, made the deal to save his granddaughter, who'd had an inoperable brain tumor when she was six. Yeah, this dude definitely didn't deserve that.

"And the kid lives, even if we rip up the contract?" he asked. She'd be about sixteen now, and even though he had no idea what she looked like and the ages didn't quite match up, Dean immediately pictured Claire and his stomach turned at the thought of screwing this up and hurting her.

Sam nodded. "Went through it, line by line."

"Alright." He got up and stretched his back slightly. "Saddle up. We're out in ten."

Cas stood up—and so did Juliet from where she'd plunked herself down next to the table—but Sam shifted in his seat.

"Actually, why don't you and Cas take this one—I'll stay here and finish cataloguing all this."

It was a plausible excuse, and it was true that they weren't completely done organizing all of this beyond separating the piles, but there was something in his brother's tone that pinged Dean's attention.

"Eileen's Facetiming you later, isn't she?"

"Shut up," Sam muttered.

"Ha! Knew it." Dean grinned, looking to Cas for support, but the angel seemed completely uninterested in the banter. Fine. Whatever. "C'mon, Cas, guess it's just you and me, buddy." There was a growl behind him. "And Juliet," he added with a sigh, because arguing with a devil dog the size of a small bear wasn't exactly on his to-do list.

"Do you...do you think that's a good idea?" Sam asked, eyeing Juliet. She rumbled at him and he held up his hands. "Sorry. Uh, good girl."

She snorted and moved to stand next to Dean.

Sam had a point, though. Dean was pretty sure Crowley never took her along to _break_ contracts and the last thing he needed was some innocent guy getting mauled because he couldn't keep Princess Scud on a leash. Not that he had any intention of putting her on a leash—he didn't have a death wish.

Dammit.

"Juliet," he said, turning towards her and looking her straight in her red eyes. They didn't blink or flinch. It was a little unsettling, how they just...were. "No hunting. We're not killing anyone." Juliet barked her displeasure, but Dean stood his ground, hoping against hope that she couldn't detect the fear he was forcing down. "No. This person is good. They don't deserve Hell."

She growled a little, then looked to Cas, of all people.

"Perhaps...perhaps she needs a job, Dean. A purpose."

There was something Dean didn't like under Cas' words, something almost sad. But, he didn't get to dwell on it because Juliet yipped in her sulphuric, demonic way, and Dean took that as agreement.

"Uh," Dean stammered eloquently. What the _hell_? When did his life include making a damn hellhound feel good about herself? "Um, it could be dangerous? I might need you to make sure nothing happens to me?"

Juliet seemed about as happy as a hellhound could be at that, which Dean thought might be cause for concern, all things considered. Meanwhile, Sam pursed his lips in a pretty piss-poor attempt to hide his amusement. Yep, here it was: Dean Winchester, saying he needed a guard dog on a milk run to talk to a retiree. Fucking hell, he was never going to live this down.

 

* * *

 

Dean Winchester had done a lot of weird shit in his life, but this might have taken the cake: driving to a not-hunt with an angel in the passenger seat and a hellhound in the back. He thought maybe they should walk into a bar, just to complete the picture.

Back in the library, Juliet had disappeared for a moment, probably expecting them to just zap along with her, but Dean wasn't a demon and he wouldn't want to travel by Angel Airways, either, even if Cas could have managed it. She'd returned a moment later, looking at them with complete disappointment, before following them to the garage and miraculously not chomping him to bits after getting a lecture about how to treat Baby's leather seats.

"You should roll the window down for her," Sam had said, hands in his pockets as he watched them pack up and leave.

Dean had flipped him off but had begrudgingly done just that. From what he could now see of Juliet in the rearview mirror, she seemed to like it, even if he and Cas had to tell her that the other cars on the road weren't a threat. The minivan with the loud kids had been a disaster waiting to happen; thank god the kids couldn't actually see her and the road noises had been enough to disguise her snarling.

Furry Hell Queen aside, though, this wasn't actually all that bad. Even Juliet wasn't the worst thing ever. It wasn't often that Dean got to just hang out with Cas, especially not without some armageddon shit hanging over them.

His Metallica tape was about to turn over and start again in the deck, so Dean popped it out and handed the cassette to Cas.

"Pick out some tunes, buddy." Privately, he hoped that Cas wouldn't mention this to Sam or else he'd be stuck listening to Sam's podcasts or shit like Ladyheart from here on out. (Well, maybe not Ladyheart; of course it would take nothing short of _Lucifer_ to get Sam to stop listening to crap like that.)

Cas gaped at him, but accepted the tape and leaned forward to put it in the shoebox in the footwell. He didn't pick up the box, though, and Dean frowned.

"What?" His stomach flipped and he laughed, even if he didn't really feel it. "Limited time offer, man. Otherwise you're gonna be stuck listening to Zepp."

Cas looked down at his hands, then glanced over at Dean. "I wouldn't mind."

"Uh, ok…"

Before Dean could ask any more questions, Cas reached inside his jacket and pulled out a black cassette tape. _That_ cassette tape. DEANS TOP 13 ZEPP TRAXX. Dean stared at it until Juliet barked and he jerked his eyes back to the road and yanked the steering wheel so they were back in their lane. His heart was pounding a mile a minute, both from the fucking tape Cas was still holding like it was a holy relic, and the fact that Juliet's warning had nearly made him leap out of his skin.

He couldn't see her out of the corner of his eye, but he could smell the fire and brimstone of her breath as she leaned her head over the front seat and between the two of them.

Awesome. Now they had a fucking chaperone. One who didn't like Cas all that much. And here he thought having this conversation with _Sam_ would be the hardest part. No, now he was going to have to explain to a damn hellhound that he wasn't in _distress_ or _danger_ around Cas (well, not _that_ kind of distress and danger…but yeah, Dean was all kinds of bothered, let's just say). Fuck his life. Fuck everything.

"Down, girl," he said. If she were a regular dog, he might have pushed her muzzle back, but he valued his right hand. It was useful for a lot of things.

_And if you don't just man up and tell Cas everything, you're gonna need that right hand even more—_

_SHUT UP._

Oh goody. Now he was talking to himself.

"Juliet," Cas said like he was a damn hellhound whisperer or some shit (although there was a note of power in his words that made Juliet tense as she listened), "you need to sit back. I will not hurt Dean."

Juliet let out a dissatisfied snort, but didn't move. From the hot breath on his neck, Dean assumed she had turned to him.

"What he said, Juliet. You're not allowed to attack Cas. Ever. Cas is...a friend. Family. You don't hurt Sam, and you don't hurt Cas."

Finally, Juliet retreated.

Cas looked at him, surprised and unsure. "Ever?"

Dean shrugged as nonchalantly as he could, even if the hellhound's former proximity still had him on edge. "Yeah, dude."

"Even if…" Cas didn't finish, and instead turned the tape in his hands. He didn't have to finish, Dean knew exactly what he was thinking.

"Yeah, Cas. Even if." Dean reached out a hand, waggling his fingers. "Come on."

Cas handed him the tape, and Dean took it, pointedly trying to ignore how their fingers lingered for just a second longer than was probably normal. Without a word, Dean jammed the tape into the deck. The first notes of "Ramble On" filled the car and they both turned to each other and smiled.

Yeah, Dean thought he could get used to this.

 

* * *

 

After the first trip to Colorado, dealing with the innocent contracts became easier, but not easy. There were always tears and thank yous, and to be honest, Dean just felt uncomfortable with the gratitude, even if he felt kinda good about what he was doing.

The first one, Juliet had paced uneasily in Matthew Tolland's living room while he showed them pictures of his granddaughter, Lilah (who didn't look like Claire but looked more like Charlie, and wasn't that a punch in the fucking gut)—birthday parties, soccer games, pool parties. Mr. Tolland said it was all worth it, he would have gladly gone after his ten years, knowing he'd been able to give her that, but now he might get to see her graduate, go to college, get married.

It was all too much. By the time Dean and Cas left, Dean could barely speak.

"That was a good thing you did, Dean," Cas said as Dean started up the car.

He glanced in the rearview mirror; Juliet eyed them from the backseat. He couldn't tell what she was thinking—probably that he was a huge letdown after Crowley. Whatever. Cas was right.

"Yeah," he said, a little shakily. "Yeah."

He didn't even object when Cas carefully reached out and covered Dean's hand with his own.

 

* * *

 

They did a few more "local" contracts, the farthest one being a few hours north of Vancouver, before Dean realized that they were either going to have to settle for mailing the destroyed contracts with a note or he'd have to suck it up and get on a plane.

It was Eileen who came up with a solution during one of her video chats with Sam. (Also, Dean thought that if Sam didn't marry that girl, who took their new situation in stride—even after learning that their Ketch/shapeshifter/hellhound theory had been right—then Sam was dumber than his haircut, or lack thereof.)

"I don't mind flying," she said and signed when Sam brought his laptop over to Dean in the kitchen so he could join the conversation. "And I like to travel."

"Really?" Dean blinked. "You'd do that?"

"Of course!" She looked to Sam at the edge of her screen and adjusted her glasses; she'd started wearing hellhound specs ever since her trip to South Carolina, so it was just as well when she found out about Juliet. "You could come, too. You know the contracts better."

Dean glanced at Sam, nodding with mock seriousness. "Mm, yes, the contracts. Definitely need a...lawyerly type for that."

"Okayyyy," Sam drawled, picking up the laptop again. "Uh, say bye to Eileen, Dean. I'm gonna...we're gonna…"

"Bye, Dean!" Eileen caroled with amusement as Sam whisked her away. Dean managed to get a wave in before the screen was turned from him.

Cas stood in the doorway with an arched brow. "I missed something."

Dean rubbed his hands together and waggled his eyebrows because that was something he did now around Cas. "We got the Bunker to ourselves. Sammy's going on a trip. To Europe. With Eileen. They'll be gone for _weeks_."

Cas' mouth quirked up. They hadn't done much since Colorado, and they hadn't mentioned anything to Sam, but there might have been a lot more...contact between the two of them. And actually, Sam hadn't been the interrupting moose he usually was. No, it was Juliet who'd taken over that job. Which is why—because his life was a fucking joke—he and Cas had spent a little more time than was probably necessary making sure the dungeon, with its convenient Devil's Trap and extra warding and very, very thick steel door, was, uh, in working order. Could never be too careful: couldn't have the Bunker falling into disrepair.

What could Dean say? He was a romantic: he took Cas to all the nicest places.

Juliet was less than amused whenever they emerged, probably looking like guilty teenagers. They always found her pacing outside the door, growling. One of these days, Sam was bound to catch on if he ever heard her or followed her, but so far, they were in the clear.

But just as soon as his excitement over having all that free time with Cas occurred to him, so did the enormity of what that meant. He would have weeks. Alone. With no one to talk to. But Cas.

Shit.

Between cases and trying to find a spare moment without a moose or a dog around, they hadn't _really_ had a chance to talk about what this even was between them, and a non-conversation over a mixtape probably didn't count.

Well. That sounded like tomorrow's problem.

 

* * *

 

Luckily, kinda, Dean didn't have to worry about the whole heart-to-heart with Cas situation for long.

As much as Dean wanted to make sure this contract business was wrapped up pronto for the people they were letting go and whose deals were due soon, he missed a real hunt. Sam and Eileen were gone, having left a few days ago, and Cas had left that morning to meet Mary in Virginia to help with a poltergeist case. Dean had been somewhat gratified that she'd actually called him first, not Cas, but he and Cas had taken one look at Juliet and decided that maybe that wasn't a good idea. If the hellhound didn't know what to make of Cas, no matter how many times they told her he wasn't a threat to Dean, they didn't want to risk what Juliet might think of Mary, especially if tensions grew high.

"I'll call you when I get there," Cas had said as he'd left in his P.O.S. truck—but not before he'd taken the mixtape back out of the Impala.

"Yeah," Dean nodded.

Cas looked at him intently, then leaned out the driver's window and kissed him, like that was just _normal_ , like their lives were apple-pie, 'have a good day, honey'. It wasn't their first kiss, but it was the first outside a dank dungeon and Dean was a little stunned as Cas pulled away, settled into the seat, and started the truck. It puttered out of the garage and down the tunnel.

Beside him, Juliet whined a little—confused, worried, or relieved, he couldn't be sure.

"He'll be back." He also wasn't sure who he was reassuring.

Restless, he took Juliet outside and let her hunt in the woods again, checking his phone for any possible cases. It occurred to him that even if she didn't get along with other people, the hellhound would be damn useful against a werewolf or wendigo or any of the other nasties they came up against.

Nothing raised any red flags (not that he'd really had much time to do more than skim some headlines) before Juliet returned, this time with a possum. She presented it to him, just like she had with her other kills, and like before, he told her she was a good girl and that she should take it. He got the sense she was expecting some sort of reaction other than that, but he had no fucking idea what.

His phone vibrated just as she crunched her way through the last of the animal. It was one of the alerts Sam had set up for the contracts: an "innocent" and it was due soon. His eyes widened as he read the name.

"Oh god _dammit_."

 

* * *

 

The only upside to dealing with the contract for Hayley—yes, just Hayley, because the Top 40 "star" thought she was fucking Madonna or whatever—was that she wasn't in L.A., but was on tour in Dallas. Dean loaded up Juliet and headed out in the Impala, wondering how he was even going to get near her to tell her about her contract.

He'd talked with Sam before he'd left, mostly complaining about why they were letting her out of her deal in the first place.

"She's been torturing America for _years_ with her pop crap, Sammy! Only fair."

"What? How do you even know—never mind. Look, Dean, as awful as her music may be, that doesn't exactly warrant eternity in Hell."

"But—"

"Plus," Sam said, his voice rising over Dean's, "I read the contract again. There's a loophole. She only gets to be famous as long as the contract is in order. Crowley worked that clause into a lot of his entertainment industry deals, it seems."

"Wait, so, we rip this thing up, she doesn't go to Hell _and_ we don't have to listen to her whine about how she just wants a bf who's a nice guy?"

"....you really do know her music."

"Shut up. It's _everywhere_. You can't escape it!"

"Sure, Dean."

So here he was, on the way to Dallas to somehow tell a celebrity she better pack her bags and head back to East Nowhere, Alabama where she came from because her fifteen minutes were long past up.

He considered pretending to be a fan and seeing if he could finagle a backstage pass but he just couldn't bring himself to sink that low. He had _some_ standards, goddammit. They were outside the hotel Hayley was staying at, and Juliet was practically pacing in the backseat, not that she really had the space to do so. The paparazzi had camped out and Juliet was less than convinced when Dean said they weren't a threat to him. But, hell, even when he'd been Jensen Ackles for a day, the most he'd had was a chauffeur. Not like he had been one of the Chrises or something.

"I dunno, Juliet," he said because apparently talking to his devilish sidekick was what he did now. "What would Crowley do? This was his gig way more than mine."

Juliet perked up at her former master's name, but Dean had a feeling they were on very, very different pages here. But, the mention did give Dean an idea.

A quick change in a bathroom off of the lobby and Dean was in his FBI best. He even grabbed Sam's old laptop bag as a makeshift briefcase to complete the look. They rode up the elevator to Hayley's suite and were of course greeted, to put it politely, by two burly bodyguards.

"Easy, fellas," he said. "Just need to talk to Hayley."

"She's not seeing anyone," Burly One grunted.

"Oh, I think she'll see me. Tell her I'm here on behalf of Crowley." Burlies One and Two glanced at each other, obviously recognizing the name. Dean just put a hand on Juliet's flank. "Juliet?"

On cue, the hellhound snarled and the bodyguards visibly quailed.

"What the—" Burly Two said.

Before they could recover, Dean stepped forward towards the door. From the sound of things, Juliet nipped at each of the men as she passed them, but there was no blood, thank god.

"Thanks," Dean said cheerily as he opened the door.

The suite was huge—Dean was pretty sure he'd seen whole houses that could fit in the living room alone. It was all sleek lines, white paint and fabric, and huge windows that Baby could probably drive through without even brushing the sides (if they were open and not on the 30th floor). In the center of the long grey couch sat Hayley, stretched out in a fluffy bathrobe and watching _The Bachelorette_ on the ginormous TV.

"Ms. Hayley?"

"Holy shit!" The late-twenty-something star jolted up off the couch. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm here because of your contract," Dean said, taking a seat in a fashionably uncomfortable navy blue chair.

Hayley frowned and her thick pink and blue curls fell around her face. "My recording contract?"

"No. Your other contract. With Crowley."

The girl's already pale skin went even paler. "What? Are you— Get out of here!"

Dean held up a hand, then reached into the laptop case and pulled out the contract, still whole. "I ain't here to collect." She stared at him in disbelief. "I get it, it's a tough business: one day you're in, the next you're out—"

"Yeah, ok, Heidi."

Dean ignored her, just glad Sam wasn't there to catch that. "But that was a stupid deal. And you're lucky Crowley ain't in charge of your contract anymore."

Holding it up, he ripped it apart. From beside the couch, Juliet growled. Hayley's eyes darted in the hellhound's direction, flicking back and forth to try and see her. They finally landed on where Juliet's paws made deep indents in the plush carpet and Hayley scrambled backwards into the couch cushions.

Dean hooked a thumb at Juliet. "That, that's a hellhound. Juliet here would've torn you apart. Trust me, it ain't pretty." Despite his words, there was no levity in his tone.

"Wh-what? So, that's it?" Hayley asked, her eyes never leaving the spot where roughly Juliet stood. "I'm out?"

"Not exactly," Dean said. Standing, he went over to the kitchenette, held the papers over the sink, and set them on fire with a lighter from his pocket before dropping them in. He turned back to her and gestured around the room. "See, all this? Only good while the contract was valid. And now it ain't. So, if I were you, I'd pack up, take whatever money you haven't blown on clothes or shoes or whatever it is you people spend your money on—" Hayley's eyes narrowed. "—and go back home."  

He walked back to the chair and picked up his laptop case. "Come on, Juliet." The hellhound followed, but he paused at the door and turned back. "Oh, and for the love of god, lay off the autotune."

Back in the car, Dean sent a text to Sam, letting him know the job was done. He felt irritable; sure, they were saving people, but this was just not his kind of thing.

Pocketing the phone, he turned back to Juliet. "What say you and me find a real hunt or something?"

He tried not to flinch when she barked her agreement.


	8. Chapter 8

Juliet sat in the back of the car and waited while her master looked at his phone box thing. He kept taking her out to deal with contracts, but they were all false hunts. She hadn’t killed anything besides tiny furry prey since before leaving Hell, and watching her intended prey cry over torn bits of paper was no substitute. She wanted to bite something.

Her new master had been no help, either. Between him and the angel-man, they were being very confusing. Most of the time, sunshine/magic Cas(tiel?) was helpful to her, helping her master to understand what she meant, but then their eyes met and they’d stare at each other and her master’s feelings were too hard to sort out. Juliet wished he had a smoke form so she could more easily see how he really felt.

It would have been much easier to just keep them apart, but they had covered a room in Bad Things. She tried and tried, but she couldn’t get in. Didn’t her master know that it wasn’t safe to go anywhere that Juliet couldn’t reach? Her job was to keep him safe, and she couldn’t do that if there were Bad Things in the way. Worse still, she was forbidden to harm both Cas(tiel?) and Sam(oose?), so even if she could get in, her options were limited.

From the front seat, her new master exclaimed at his phone thing. "Aha! Ain’t much, but looks like there’s a vamp over in New Mexico. Shouldn’t take more’n five or six hours to get there if we haul ass. How’s that sound?"

Juliet had no idea what a vamp was, or whose ass they would be hauling, but she liked the sound of his enthusiasm. She barked happily to agree with him. He again flinched slightly, and everything that had felt right turned wrong again. Her new master didn’t behave like a predator, but like prey who was afraid of her. He should have been the _one_ person who wasn’t afraid of her, but somehow that was the confusing angel-man who should have been at least a _little_ afraid of her. Nothing made sense anymore.

Her new master woke up the car beast and encouraged it to move. It was still disappointing that he couldn’t travel properly, but travel by car was never dull. There were plenty of other car beasts that traveled towards them at speeds where it would have been impossible for her master to react in time, so she took it upon herself to warn them away before they could attack. None had yet dared to face her in combat.

They stopped once on their way to the "vamp". Her new master needed to "fill up" the car, "hit the head", and "grab a bite". It was amusing to think she had once thought he had been going into battle without her. Now Juliet knew enough to guard the car while it ate and to wait while her master gathered food. She still didn’t know what head he was hitting, but she would have sensed his distress if it was ever a problem. He always came back with a dry, chewy meat thing for her, which wasn’t a very good offering, but it was much better than being ignored.

When they reached their destination, Juliet thought they would have gone straight to the "vamp", but instead it was just more talking. Her master talked to someone he called a "cop", then he talked to a crying person — but he didn’t give them a torn up contract, so that wasn’t so bad — and he had her wait in the car while he went into a building and talked to other people. She was bored, and tired of not being allowed to be a proper ‘hound.

Her new master came back from talking, and something must have changed, because he had a smile on his face. That was one of the few expressions Juliet could usually read on a meat face, though sometimes it meant something else. Her master got back into the car, started it moving again, and said, "There’s a cabin out on the outskirts of town. Sounds like our vamp’s out there."

Oh! Vamp time! Whatever a vamp was, it was bound to be better than sitting alone in the car. Juliet licked her master’s face and tried not to feel disappointed when it didn’t make him happy. They were working together on a thing and he hadn’t sent her away and there was nobody else there but the two of them. It was going to be good.

There were no cars to scare away on the drive to the vamp cabin. On one paw, Juliet felt proud of having scared them all away, but on the other paw, she missed having something important to do. It was a relief when her master stopped the car and got out.

Juliet stalked alongside him, alert and ready to protect her master. He took a long knife thing out of the car before moving towards the dark wooden building. The woods around them fell silent, so every sound they made was clearly audible. For the first time, Juliet’s master actually moved like a predator instead of prey.

He never gave her any commands. All he told her before moving in was, "Alright, we got at least an hour ‘til sundown. Back me up," which didn’t mean anything to Juliet.

Turning the doorknob carefully, her master winced at the creaking noise when he opened the door. The smell that wafted out didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest, but all Juliet could smell was blood and dead and wrong. There was no immediate threat in the room, though, so she cautiously followed.

Her master quickly searched the room with his eyes. Apparently coming to the same conclusion as she had, he crossed the room and started checking doors. He didn’t so much as glance at Juliet, even though he still wore the face glass thing that let him see her.

The smell seemed to be strongest near a door at the back. Her master was busy checking other things, and there were no bad smells coming from that area, so she waited. He eventually got around to the room where she waited, and when he got there, she stood at point. His eyebrows tried to find his hair and he nodded once, not saying anything. He patted her head, which was something, at least.

She wanted to be the first through the door, but her master had other ideas. Her former master had always let her go first if it was dangerous, but her new master seemed to like leading. Whatever, she would stay close to him, ready to leap to his defense.

Opening the door made the bad smells much stronger and her master’s face did a weird crinkly thing. Even though her master had been surprisingly good at sneaking so far, even he couldn’t be completely silent going down the old wooden stairs leading into the underground part of the house. Each footstep creaked, and Juliet could hear soft sounds of movement below.

Her master was barely down the stairs when the bad thing attacked. The vamp(?) stabbed at her master, but he managed to mostly dodge, so it missed the important squishy bits, but still left a slice in his side. Juliet was all set to jump to his aid, but her master fought back, shoving the vamp(?) against the nearest wall.

That was when the second one rushed in, and Juliet felt no hesitation in stopping that one. She tackled the foul-smelling thing to the ground, bit down on its arm until it dropped its knife, then tore into its chest with both front paws. Its screams were gratifying after so long without a proper kill, and Juliet took her time.

As if from far away, she heard her master shout, "Juliet! Stop!"

Keeping the thing pinned, Juliet turned to look at her master. His face was pale and his hands shook as he watched her. The first vamp(?) lay headless at his feet. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, then tightened his grip on his knife thing and said, "Outta the way."

He stank of fear, but stepped forward all the same. Juliet’s former master had occasionally liked to do the killing himself. She wasn’t about to get in the way of her new master doing the same. Stepping back, she kept one paw on the creature to keep it pinned.

The knife thing came down, separating the thing’s head from its body so it rolled away. Quick and efficient, it made sense. Her new master was determined to do things his way and Juliet took note of his style. Don’t waste time, get things done, move on. It was very ‘hound-like, actually.

He stumbled away from the body and over to the corner, where another dead body lay. That one had been dead before they arrived, and had never been a thing like the things they had killed. Her master pressed fingers to its throat and listened to its chest, then stood and wiped a hand over his face.

"Fuck," he said. "God damn fucking fuck. Home can wait a bit, I need a fuckin’ drink."

Juliet waited for him to praise her for protecting him, but the praise never came. He walked away, up the stairs to the floor above. She raced up to join him, catching up as he was washing his knife thing. He took the time to make sure it and his hands were entirely clean, then walked outside and tossed the knife thing back where it came from in the car. He never said a word to her.

Grabbing a box out of the back of the car, he opened it and set it down on top where he could reach it. He then lifted his clothing away from where the knife had gouged him and looked at it in the car’s side mirror. Whatever he saw made him mutter and grab things out of the box. He then…tortured himself? He poked holes in his skin and bound the injury together with something thin and flexible instead of having a witch mend the damaged meat. Juliet had never seen anything quite like it.

While he was torturing himself, Juliet licked the blood off her paws and grimaced at the taste. She wished she had thought to wash her paws when her master had washed his own. With any luck, he would let her hunt before they left the forested place.

Closing the box, her master put it back where it came from, then stiffly climbed into his seat. He didn’t open the door for her, didn’t say a word; he just started the car and steered it away from the house, away from the dead things, and away from Juliet. It must have been a mistake. She barked over and over to call him back, but he didn’t stop.

It was fine. She could shortcut through Hell, then follow her bond with him back out. Her former master had done this on purpose plenty of times before between contracts. She would run a soul to Hell while he moved on to the next hunt where she would track him down. Standard procedure, really, except that Juliet had no soul to ferry across and her new master wasn’t going on to the next hunt.

Taking a few minutes to hunt down a squirrel for herself, she then leaped into one of the forest’s many lengthening shadows and raced back to Hell. From there, it was easy enough to turn around and follow the guiding sense that tied her to her new master. Course correcting once or twice, she emerged from the shadow of her master’s great black car beast outside a pathetic excuse for a building. Barking once, she settled in beside the car and waited. She didn’t wait for long, though. What had been a low, simmering pool of discontent in her master abruptly escalated into more immediate distress.

Juliet was undecided. Normally, she would have barged in to fight whatever had bothered her master. Lately, though, every time she had done so, her master had gotten upset with her and forbade her to harm whatever was causing him distress. The smells inside were food and alcohol and mortal human, so nothing unusual. Still, her training said she should have been inside already.

Snarling softly, Juliet paced back and forth, weaving between large rusty truck beasts and smaller shiny metal monsters. She didn’t have to wait long before her master walked out, smelling like whisky and fear. Following after him, she drew up short when the door opened again, spilling forth a crowd of loud men. Were they the ones who upset her master?

The men pushed each other in displays of dominance, laughed and talked over each other’s words. Juliet growled at them to warn them off, but the warning was lost amid the sounds of their shiny metal steeds waking up. Unsure if she could face so many beasts at once, she still stood her ground between them and her master until they left. Her master let out a breath — obviously as relieved as she that they wouldn’t have to face so many — then got into his car. Again, he closed the door without letting her in.

She whined a question to her master, which he apparently didn’t hear, because the car beast again backed up and rode away without her. He hadn’t given her a new target or destination, and both times he had been distressed. Was he purposely leaving without her? Why would he do such a thing?

Rather than cut through Hell, Juliet opted to lope along behind the car. It felt good to stretch her legs at full speed for a change and it gave her time to think. Her former master had left, for whatever reason, and had left Juliet to a man who couldn’t see her, couldn’t keep up with her, and didn’t want her. Why?

The only answer she kept coming back to was simply that her former master had liked beer/cars/gunpowder Dean better than anyone else. He had hated the other demons, and of the many mortals he knew, Dean was the only one he had chosen to spend time with. Was Juliet a gift? Thinking back to what New Man Harold had said, her former master had given everything he owned to Dean, which included Juliet. But why? He had always been trying to gather more things for himself. Why would he have given it all away?

She was no closer to an answer when her new master brought his car beast to a stop. It was a place off the road with few people and only one building. He got out, visited the building briefly, then came back and got back in the car. Then, ignoring her whines again, he closed his eyes and slept. Lacking any other course of action, Juliet guarded him, and tried to make sense of their strange situation.

The rest of the trip back to her master’s bunker palace was more of the same. More being ignored, more of her master’s incomprehensible distress, and more of Juliet following the car beast on foot. If she were a mortal dog, she could never have done such a thing, but Juliet was a hellhound, and ‘hounds never tired. Still, she missed having someone pay attention to her.

It was almost a relief when the car pulled into the car stable at the bunker palace. Her master got out, grabbed his bag of clothing from the back, and studiously continued to ignore Juliet. His steps were swift moving deeper into the building, never holding doors to let her through. It didn’t matter. Juliet opened the doors herself — albeit with some difficulty — and continued to follow him.

She caught up with him when angel-man Cas(tiel?) had him trapped with both arms. For the first time, though, she sensed no distress from her master. The constant call to arms in her head finally faded away. She hadn’t been aware of how tense she had felt until it eased. Juliet prided herself on being good at puzzling out the truth, and the only logical conclusion was that her master’s distress was soothed when trapped by Cas(tiel?).

The angel-man’s eyes found hers and he touched her master’s shoulder, saying, "Dean? She followed you home."

That quickly, she again felt the need to protect her master from an unnamed threat. A suspicion began to build in her mind, but she didn’t like it. Her master only said, "Cas— "

The angel-man interrupted his words. "Don’t worry, Dean. I’ll talk to her. You go get cleaned up."

Her master didn’t hesitate long. Nodding after a moment, he left with his bag of clothing, leaving Juliet alone with Cas(?). She tried to follow her master, but Cas(?) followed along with her and said, "Wait, Juliet. We need to talk about Dean."

She longed to follow her master, but the sense of a threat had already begun to fade. The angel-man seemed to somehow have a better understanding of her master than she did, which should have been impossible. Reluctantly, she sat back on her haunches and met the angel-man’s strange blue eyes, silently urging him to speak.

"Juliet," Cas(?) said, "about nine years ago, Dean went to Hell."

Well of course he had. Wasn’t that how people became demons? Seeing as it was such an obvious statement, Juliet waited for more.

Cas(?) sighed. "I’m not explaining this well. Juliet, when someone sells their soul and the contract comes due, what happens to that person?"

That was when she got to tear their soul out and take it to Hell, of course. She clawed at an imaginary person on the floor to demonstrate her understanding.

"Right," he confirmed. "And how do you think that feels for the person involved?"

Tilting her head to one side, Juliet considered the question. She had never thought of it from that point of view before. Pain? Was it painful? Juliet had once been sliced by an iron something from the back of a target’s car. That had hurt. If tearing open a human was like tearing a wound in a ‘hound, then her prey had felt pain many times over.

Watching her intently, Cas(?) nodded slowly. "Yes. It wasn’t you, but another hellhound once tore apart Dean, carried his soul to Hell, and delivered him to suffer decades of torment. I brought him back, but he’s been frightened of hellhounds ever since. He’s strong, so he doesn’t like to let it show, but…what you do, it bothers him. Seeing you kill that vampire made Dean’s suffering fresh in his mind again."

Her suspicion had been entirely correct. Even though she did everything he asked of her, Juliet’s master was afraid of her. Had her former master known? He had been King of Hell, he must have known. Why would he have given Juliet to a man who was afraid of her? Why hadn’t he just left her with Connall? Sure, life in the kennel was boring, but at least she’d had others who wanted her around.

Hanging her head, Juliet whimpered. She was an unwanted gift. She didn’t know what she could have done wrong, but she must have done something bad for her former master to have sent her where she wasn’t wanted.

In the middle of contemplating where she could go to stay out of everyone’s way, Juliet felt a hand on her head. Cas(?) stroked her fur, showing none of her master’s reluctance. Continuing to pet her, he said, "He’ll warm up to you. Just give him some time, okay? It’s been a major adjustment for both of you, and you both deserve a chance to get used to it."

Time? Juliet still wasn’t so great at tracking the passage of time. She knew night and day. She knew sunup to sundown made _a_ day. Would her master need more than that? More than one of those had already passed. She knew how to wait, though. She had once waited in Hell while her master was gone somewhere with beer/cars/gunpowder/magic Dean while they were both demons. That had taken so long that Juliet had been forced to grasp the concept of the progression of time in the first place.

Cas(?) took his hand away and said, "Why don’t you go outside and hunt in the woods for awhile. Give me a chance to talk to him. Then come back when it gets dark out if you feel like it." When she gave him a dubious look, he continued, "I promise you, he’s safe here."

That was a deal Juliet could accept. Solemnly, she offered her paw. Cas(?) stared at it for a moment, and just as she was sure he was changing his mind, he took her paw in his hand and shook to seal the deal. She barked once — softly, so as not to startle her master, hopefully — then bounded into the nearest shadow to shortcut through Hell. The forest outside the bunker palace still had parts she hadn’t yet explored, and she had time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have a special bonus for you all. Tomorrow (Thursday) Grey will be posting a bit of Dean's point of view for this chapter. It didn't exactly fit the tone of this fic (and it came in the middle of the chapter), so it's being posted on its own as an addition to the series. To reiterate, it won't show up in this fic, but as a separate fic in the series. You should be able to come back here and click "Next work" to get to it if you're not subscribed directly to us or to the series. Chapter 9 will still post here on Friday.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you missed it, we published a deleted scene as a separate fic: [Chapter 8.5](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11880315) There's also a link at the bottom of 8.5 that will bring you back here.

The next morning, Dean woke up to a very crowded room. Well, crowded by his standards, considering the only shaggy creature he'd been sharing sleeping quarters with lately was his brother in motels rooms, until he was graced with a couple hundred pounds of hell beast. And, the other side of the bed had been depressingly empty until last night.

Cas had come in, more or less talked him off the ledge/let him talk himself off the ledge, and then had settled down, at Dean's instance, on the other side of the bed. Dean knew Cas didn't need to sleep but Dean had said one word, a word he'd held behind his teeth and behind bluster and frustration, for far too long: "Stay." He'd followed it with a half-broken "Please".

"Of course."

And Cas had stayed.

It had been so easy.

Dean had been woken a few hours later by a soft bark outside his door, one that had jolted him up, causing Cas to still him with a firm hand on his shoulder.

"I can send her away," he'd offered, sliding off the headphones he'd borrowed to watch Netflix on his phone while Dean slept.

But Dean knew it wasn't her fault, that she'd seemed as upset and hurt as a hellhound could get when he'd left her behind. She hadn't understood. She might not entirely yet, but Cas said she was trying.

"No. She can come in."

In fact, he'd gotten up to open the door himself, even though he was pretty sure she could have either figured out a way to open it herself or just broken it down if she'd really wanted to.

Through his glasses, which Cas had fetched from the Impala before he'd come to the room, Dean could see the hellhound's head, hanging low between her shoulders. He knew that those red eyes had seen parts of Hell even he didn't know about, that those teeth could tear him apart and had torn many apart with no reservations—she'd _enjoyed_ her hunts. But right now, she was a kicked puppy. A very large and terrifying puppy. But a puppy, nonetheless.

He wondered if Sarah MacLachlan did songs for abandoned hellhounds, too.

Silently, he'd opened up the door and stepped back, letting Juliet into the room. She'd eyed the bed, where Cas still lay, and paused as if she was trying to figure out this chain of events. But, she didn't snarl or bark or anything, merely curled up on the floor as best as she could in the small space at the foot of his bed. And that was that.

He'd slept surprisingly well, all things considered.

But he felt nearly claustrophobic when he woke up—they were the only three people/things in the very big Bunker, yet here they were, crammed in a room that was probably spacious by 1930s standards but wasn't exactly a luxury master suite. Hell, just to get out the door, he was either going to have to A) crawl over Cas, B) ask Cas to move so Dean could slide out on his side, or C) ask Juliet to move. He was kind of leaning towards A if only because B was no fun and C was way more risk than he was willing to take before coffee.

He went with A.

It took awhile to get out of the room as a result.

Juliet had growled until Cas had told her to go hunt in the woods, which she had done only after Dean had echoed Cas' sentiment. Dean found her later in the hallway outside the bathroom when he'd come out of the shower. Luckily, he'd remembered to put his glasses back on or he'd likely have been a few toes short after the encounter.

The rest of the day was incredibly lowkey, for them. No hunts were on the horizon, so Cas spent most of the day going through Sam's notes on Crowley's stashes and Dean spent most of the day tuning up Cas' truck while Juliet paced around the garage, eyeing the old cars suspiciously. He still kept her at a relative arm's length, but he was doing a hell of a lot better than he was the day before.

Sam and Eileen video chatted with them from somewhere in Poland (in some town Dean didn't have a prayer of pronouncing correctly) in the late afternoon, Kansas time. They'd been doing a whirlwind tour of countries and contracts and they looked exhausted but content. Dean was pretty sure that Eileen practically sitting in his brother's lap had only a little to do with trying to both get in the camera frame.

Well, good for Sammy. Dean even considered not teasing the everloving shit out of his brother about it because he was a swell guy and was obviously above such immaturity.

(And partially because with him and Cas, which Sam still did not know about yet, Dean could only expect that karma would be a fucking bitch and Sam would be _relentless_ when he did find out.)

Eileen said they'd be back next week—there were only a few contracts left that had to be dealt with sooner rather than later. They could do another batch later on. They'd managed to hit most of Europe (it seemed Crowley had had some preferred stomping grounds), but there were a few due in Africa and South America that they only had a year left on, and a few in Australia and eastern Asia that were up in a few years.

They signed off—literally, in Sam and Eileen's case; Dean had tried to mimic a few basic signs as best he could but he hadn't been studying ASL on the downlow like Sam ever since they met Eileen.

He could barely stop himself from grinning the rest of the day.

(He definitely didn't whistle as he cleaned up the garage. That would be ridiculous.)

 

* * *

 

The next day was more of the same in the morning until all hell broke loose not long after Dean had scraped together a sandwich with the last of their groceries for lunch. Juliet had been exploring the Bunker and had decided that something in one of the storage rooms was Not Good, and she'd nearly torn the room apart trying to destroy what looked to Dean like an egg straight outta _Alien_. The place was splattered in greenish goo and thick, whiteish shell bits.

"The fuck was that?" Dean asked, nearly gagging at the smell.

Cas, cool as a fucking cucumber, stepped into the room and crouched down beside a particularly large glob. "Basilisk or cockatrice, I suspect. They have nearly identical shells."

Juliet was still growling at the nastiness. Dean didn't really blame her.

"And why the fuck did the Men of Letters have one?!"

Cas stood up and shrugged. "Most likely to study it. They have an incredibly long incubation period. The eggs can lay dormant for years."

"Well, that's just _awesome_ , Daenerys. Yeah, great, let's keep the monster egg around 'til it hatches. What could go wrong?"

Cas just raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe I resemble her at all. And it wasn't a dragon egg—those have red or black shells. Besides," he concluded, looking around the room, "it's not as though _I_ decided it was a good idea."

Dean rolled his eyes, even if he was mildly impressed that Cas had gotten the reference. It'd been a few years, but it still amused Dean that Cas was 'pop culture savvy' now.

"Christ…" he muttered and looked around the room. Juliet was standing beside him, looking rather proud of herself. This was going to be a bitch to clean up. The hellhound looked at him, expectantly, and he sighed. "Nice work, Juliet."

He even patted her on the head, right between the ears. She let out one of her happy, demonic yips that still sent a shiver down his spine, then followed him while he went to get the cleaning supplies. 

 

* * *

 

On the fourth day, Dean got a call from his mom, checking in. She was working a few cases up in the Montana/Idaho region. Cas had told her about Juliet and the contracts, so at least Dean didn't have to explain that to her. He also couldn't tell if she wasn't stopping by the Bunker because of that or because she was, well, Mary.

He was surprised to find it didn't really matter either way and it didn't bother him as much as he'd thought it would.

Even so, he took some odd comfort in the cramped bedroom that night.

 

* * *

 

Dean's phone pinged after breakfast two days before Sam and Eileen were due home. He was kind of restless from their mini staycation, and he wondered if it was one of his news alerts or something letting him know about a hunt.

(He still couldn't believe Sam had tried to bullshit him back when he was working with Mick on the sly. Like Dean didn't know how to get that shit on his phone, too, or like he didn't have his own search algorithms up and running on his computer. He wasn't a total Luddite. He just thought 90% of social media shit was stupid. There was a difference.)

(Anyway.)

It wasn't a hunt. At least, not one for him.

It was Sam's contract organization system. And it was a guilty.

He'd been avoiding those, especially after the vampires.

Juliet was pacing around the kitchen, checking every corner. For what, Dean had no fucking idea.

He stared at his phone, reading the condensed form of the contract details: a senator whose opposition had mysteriously "dropped out" of the race just days before the election (and was later found dead), and that wasn't even counting all the policies and shit he'd pushed through that had hurt, and possibly killed, a lot of people while he was in office. Healthcare, transgender rights—if there was a way to screw over the public and turn a profit, all under the name of "traditional values", Senator Douche had done it. People were the worst. Dean had no problem calling this dude guilty, but the thought of seeing what happened…

But he didn't have to, did he?

He thought of that family, the rich ranchers, where Sam had killed the hellhound for the Trials. Those were all Crowley's contracts and it wasn't like the demon had showed up see the job done, right?

Or was this just him being a chickenshit?

Cas came into the room as he was still staring at the phone.

"Dean?"

He startled, then wordlessly handed him the phone.

"I saw that. I have the alerts on my phone, too." Cas sat across the table from him and gently slid the phone back. "What do you want to do? We could just destroy the contract."

Dean shook his head. "No, this asshole deserves it."

Cas nodded. "Are you going to send her?"

The phone felt like a lead weight in his hand. He didn't answer right away.

"I can tell her," Cas offered.

Now _that_ would be the chickenshit move: hiding behind Cas or Sam. He was the fucking executor on these contracts. Ultimately, the buck stopped here. And if he couldn't give the order, then he shouldn't do this at all.

"No. I'll tell her."

That night, Crowley's Scotch burned as bad as Bobby's rotgut always had.

He didn't open the door to the bedroom when Juliet came home.

 

* * *

 

When Sam and Eileen returned stateside, Dean was grinning like a goddamn idiot at the airport pickup lane. Dean didn't miss the way Sam and Eileen held hands, only dropping them so that Dean could hug each of them in turn. They loaded up the Impala and headed back to the Bunker, arriving a few hours later.

When they pulled up outside, Juliet practically bounded on the car, stopping just a foot away from Baby. Cas followed over the crest of the hill that led to where the woods were; Juliet had reluctantly agreed with only a few barks and growls to stay behind (Dean could only imagine the shitshow of bringing a twitchy hellhound to a place with loud airplanes and that many people—regular traffic was bad enough) and Cas had promised to let her hunt.

"Holy shit," Eileen gasped, standing perfectly still next to the car.

"Yeah, little different up close, huh?" Dean agreed.

Juliet circled Eileen, sizing her up, then looked to Dean.

"She's a friend, Juliet. Eileen is just like me, or Cas, or Sam. Not a threat. No hurting her."

The hellhound snorted, then sat between Eileen and Dean.

Sam tapped Eileen on the shoulder to get her attention, since her eyes hadn't moved from watching Juliet. "You can move, Eileen. She won't attack you."

"Yeah, ok." Eileen nodded, unsure.

But she gamely stuck out a hand, palm up, towards the hellhound. Juliet's eyes flashed, but then she leaned forward to smell Eileen's hand. And then licked it.

"Ugh...uh, good girl," Eileen recovered, taking her hand back. "So did I pass?"

Sam smiled at her. "Yeah, I think so. She probably already likes you better than me."

Dean rolled his eyes. "You're fine. You feed her bacon. Don't think I didn't notice."

"Yeah, and she still looks at me like she can't decide whether or not I'd taste good, too."

It took Dean a moment to realize that while he and Sam were talking, Cas had taken it upon himself to properly introduce himself to Eileen; they'd only "met" through video calls. Cas, of course, knew sign language, which meant Dean was the only jerk who didn't, but Dean had plans to rectify that situation.

(Plus, Cas talking with his hands was kind of hot, no lie. It was a win-win situation.)

They eventually made it inside the Bunker and had a surprisingly normal night of pizza and beer and poker (Eileen cleaned them out). And it had taken Sam approximately ten seconds to notice that something had changed between Dean and Cas.

"How'd you figure it out?" Dean had asked, stomach clenching as he'd handed Sam another bottle of beer in the kitchen.

Sam's lips pursed. "Seriously, Dean? Better question: how did you _not_ figure it out for so long?"

"Shut up. Bitch," he added, hopefully.

"Jerk."

Dean fiddled with the label of his beer, peeling up a corner. "So, uh, we good?"

"Yeah, Dean, we're good."

Well, that went better than he'd expected.

 

* * *

 

He hadn't had _that_ much beer the night before—he'd sobered up fast when he'd realized playing poker under the influence against Eileen was the worst fucking idea ever, but it'd been too little, too late—yet he still woke up with a bitch of a headache anyway. To be honest, he'd had a constant one, like a dull throb, for weeks, but he'd just assumed it was stress and he'd just popped a few Excedrin and moved on. Today, though, it was like someone was pounding nails into his skull.

"Fucking hell," he moaned, rubbing a palm into his eye. Cas was already gone, having said he wanted to go to a rare book dealer in Nebraska to get some tome that sounded crushingly boring to Dean, and Juliet was still curled up on the floor. With his eyes still bleary from sleep, he blindly reached over to the nightstand and fumbled around for the glasses and shoved them on his face.

He shuffled into the kitchen a few minutes later, half collapsing onto one of the stools at the table.

"You look like hell," Eileen said by way of greeting around a cup of coffee.

"And fuck you, too," he grumbled. Of course, he wasn't looking at her completely when he said it, but she still caught his drift. She just gave him a slow, deadpan blink in response. Good, she'd fit right in here.

Sam just kept eating his granola, yogurt, and fruit shit. "Dude, how much did you drink last night?"

"Ugh," he groaned and took off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. Juliet was just hanging out by the table, probably disappointed Sam wasn't feeding her scraps. "Nothing, after that last round. This fucking headache won't go away. Had it for weeks. Just the worst today."

Eileen bit the inside of her cheek, then picked up his glasses, momentarily swapping them out for her own. "Are these prescription?"

Dean opened his eyes. "Uh, I dunno. We found them on a hunt. Didn't have a lot of options."

Eileen handed her pair to him. "Mine are just plain glass I scorched. Fashion glasses or whatever."

Picking them up, Dean considered that. It would make sense that the old glasses they'd found were someone's prescription. He tried on Eileen's. They were a little small for his face, but his jaw dropped. Immediately, he spun in his seat to look at Juliet. Sure, the holy oil still distorted the colors and made it look a little like he was wearing sunglasses, but she wasn't wavy _at all_. He could see her in all her furry and smoky detail.

Holy _shit_.

Sam's brow knit. "What?"

"Dude." Dean handed the glasses to Sam.

Sam swapped, then shrugged. "I don't get it. What?"

Eileen and Dean shared a look.

"Juliet doesn't look like she's in fucking HD now?" Dean asked.

"Um, no? She looks blurrier even—oh." Sam's eyes grew wide. He put on his own pair again. "Shit. She's not clear with mine, but she's clear _er_."

Dean practically snatched his brother's glasses off his face. The prescription in Sam's set wasn't as strong as the one in Dean's (no wonder he'd been getting headaches, now that he thought about it), but there was definitely a difference. He handed them back.

"You mean to tell me," he said lowly, "that you've been watching my back this whole time when you're blind as a bat?!"

Sam scoffed. "Oh, come on. It's not _that_ bad. I can see just fine! Probably just a slight correction."

Dean stood up, putting on his original glasses with as much dignity as he could muster, even if they made his head pound even more. "Unbelievable."

 

* * *

 

Later that afternoon, Dean and Eileen dragged Sam to the closest Walmart that had a walk-in eye center and made him get a real set of glasses (while Dean scowled through the process of finding a non-douchey set of "fashion glasses"; they ended up being just like his original pair, minus the whanging headaches and eyestrain), which they promptly burned with holy oil in the back of the parking lot. Dean was even polite enough not to mention to Sam that the eye center was right next to a Supercuts, that they could have gotten him all fixed up in one stop.

He was a fucking saint. You're welcome.

But he still let Juliet ride in Sam's seat on the way home.

 


	10. Chapter 10

Juliet hadn’t been sure what to think of her new master getting so close to sunshine/magic/that-smell-before-it-rains Cas, but they actually seemed to be good for one another. Her master was happier, and somehow, Cas was on her side in most things. He was the one who talked her master into giving her another chance, and she was determined to make it work. Sometimes they didn’t make it easy, though.

Lately, the pair of them had taken to sending her off to the woods to hunt and telling her not to come back until the sun or moon had reached a certain point in the sky. They had tried saying an hour or two at first, but they eventually seemed to comprehend her lack of a sense of time. Her best guess was never right, and there had been times when they had angrily sent her back out to the woods. She couldn’t imagine what they were doing without their clothing, but it seemed to bother them when she watched.

One day, she had already hunted for the morning and returned when her master had sent her out. With nothing much to do, Juliet wandered near the edge of the forest, patrolling her territory. That was when Sam(oose?) ran past towards the bunker palace at a speed that looked relatively fast for a human.

Sam(oose?) wasn’t her master or Cas, but her master did seem to care about his well-being. He also fed Juliet fried pig meat under the table, so she had a stake in his continued survival. Racing to catch up with him, she sniffed the air to find his pursuer. There was no scent of anything hostile in the air, but the wind might have been hiding it. As Sam(oose?) slowed to a walk, Juliet fell in behind him, guarding his flanks against whatever had chased him back.

She snarled to warn things away, and Sam(oose?) whirled around, eyes wide behind the glass things he always wore on his face now. When he spotted her, he exhaled heavily and seemed to relax a bit. "Oh hey, Juliet. What’s up?"

That…was a casual question to ask from someone who had been chased. Juliet sniffed the air again, trying to narrow down what was in the area while ignoring the foolish question. The sky was up, the sun was up, birds were up and it bothered Juliet that she couldn’t reach them. Maybe the thing chasing Sam(oose?) was up. Still, the only living things she could smell besides herself and coffee/books/Eileen Sam(oose?) were tiny things like birds and squirrels. Also, if there was a something, why wasn’t he still running? Juliet began to doubt.

Walking a wide circle around her, Sam(oose?) watched Juliet for a bit, then asked, "Are you bored? Did Dean and Cas tell you to get lost?"

How did he know? Juliet barked to confirm his guess and something in his eyes softened. "Huh. Well, wanna play fetch?"

Wait, what? Did she— yes! Juliet barked excitedly and wagged her tail. She hadn’t played fetch since before her master left. She couldn’t wait to see how humans would play fetch.

Sam(oose?) laughed. "I guess that’s a 'yes', huh? Lemme just get showered and changed and grab a bottle of water, then I’ll come back out and play."

Waiting was hard. Nothing ever materialized for Juliet to fight, so she was left to sit and listen to morning sounds while no new smells happened. She was distracted for a time by a tiny bug thing crawling along the ground, but then it dug into the dirt and was gone.

When Sam(oose?) finally made his reappearance, he had damp hair and was wearing fresh clothes. In one hand he held a bottle of water, and in the other was a bright green ball. He grinned and said, "Alright, girl, you ready to fetch?"

Of course she was ready to fetch! She was _spawned_ ready! That green ball couldn’t hide from her. She was going to smell it and track it and bring it back without a mark on it.

Dancing with excitement, Juliet waited for Sam(oose?) to throw the ball. He drew his arm back and unleashed. The ball sailed through the air and…landed with a plunk on the ground.

Was that it? Confused, Juliet trotted after it, retrieved it, and deposited the ball in his hand. She then tilted her head to the side and whined. He apparently thought that was a request for more, because he smiled and threw it again. It didn’t go any farther than before.

Juliet stayed put, refusing to chase after such an insulting throw. She wasn’t a pup who needed to see her target. She was a full-grown ‘hound, capable of tracking something anywhere in the world. Human fetch was disappointing.

Sam(oose?) watched and waited, then finally said, "Go on, Juliet. Get the ball."

She refused to budge on the matter. Upper lip curling in disgust, she pointedly looked away from the ball. Sam(oose?) raised his eyebrows and said, "Uh, okay. You want me to throw a stick instead?"

Oh! Maybe the problem was with what he was throwing! Juliet usually fetched bigger things, so maybe bigger things went farther? She barked once, then bounded off into the woods to bring back a large tree branch for him to throw. Something just barely small enough to fit between her jaws maybe.

She dragged back a likely looking branch and deposited it at his feet. He looked down at it and said, "Uhh… Juliet? I get the feeling we’re not thinking of the same things here. How did Crowley play fetch with you?"

Her former master had sent things across continents for her to fetch. It wasn’t a concept easily explained through yips and growls. Taking up the branch in her jaws once more, Juliet maneuvered it so that one end was in Sam(oose?)’s hand. Then, in one great leap, she jumped into the closest shadow straight to Hell and immediately returned again. Setting the branch back at his feet, she looked up expectantly, tail wagging.

Opening his mouth, Sam(oose?) looked down at the branch and back to Juliet, then closed his mouth again. "Umm…alright, uh, Juliet, you know humans can’t do that sort of thing, right? I mean, I think demons and hellhounds are the only ones who can teleport stuff like that."

His eyes got that faraway thinking look, then he grinned. "Alright, I think I’ve got something. You know where Crowley kept all his stuff, right?"

Of course she did! She barked to confirm, and he continued, "Okay then, how ‘bout this. There’s a storage unit in, uh, Roswell, New Mexico that belonged to him. Let’s see if you can go there and fetch, let’s say…a book. Choose one that looks interesting to you."

Oh! That was much better. She could turn it into a race! Tail still wagging, Juliet dove back through the shadow, through Hell, and came back out in the appropriate storeroom. Her former master had always chuckled when visiting it.

His scent was everywhere in the room, and smelling it after so long was a comfort. Juliet sniffed everything until she found the book that smelled most like him, then eased it off the shelf by careful application of nose, paw, and teeth. When it stuck out far enough, she picked it up in her mouth and returned the way she came.

Sam(oose?) jumped a little when she returned, and his eyebrows went in search of his hairline, but he also smiled. Extending a hand, he took the book from her mouth and ran his fingers over the cover. "Juliet, you’re incredible! This is… Is this Gaelic?"

Holding the book with one hand, he took his phone box thing out of his pocket and poked at the screen with his thumb. Juliet knew that phone time was important, but she wanted to fetch more things. Restraining the urge to run some more, Juliet stretched her front legs out on the ground and whined.

The sound was enough to make Sam(oose?) look up from his phone thing. "Oh! Right, sorry. Um…maybe, grab a jar of some sort of spell ingredient from the vault in Tunisia?"

Juliet fetched one thing after another from so many of her former master’s storage vaults. Sam(oose?) had a small pile beside him by the time books/beer/gunpowder/Sam(oose?) Eileen came for them. It had taken some days of being around Eileen to get used to her — she talked strangely and she moved her hands a lot — but Juliet liked her.

"Sam," said Eileen, "what’s going on out here?"

Still holding the book, Sam(oose?) tore his eyes from the page and said, "Playing fetch with Juliet. Seems Crowley used to teleport things for her to retrieve. I obviously can’t do that, but I can send her to go get things from Crowley’s stashes around the world. I’ve been using a translation app on my phone to read this, and it looks like it might be a spellbook."

"Let me see that," Eileen replied, taking the book from his unresisting hands. She looked at the page, somehow making sense of the squiggles. "It’s a little hard to make out. I think it’s an inventory book for a tailoring shop, but it looks like there are spells hiding between ordinary listings. It would have been a way for a witch to hide their spells in plain sight."

His brows drew together and he said, "Huh. Juliet, did Crowley _write_ this book?"

Of course! That was why it smelled so strongly of him. Juliet barked to answer the question in the affirmative, wondering at the same time what it was her former master had written about. If only she knew how to read… 

Eileen interrupted both of their thoughts on the matter. "Anyways, I came to get you for breakfast. Your brother made pancakes and sausages, and I put on a fresh pot of coffee before coming out here."

Sausages? Juliet was relatively sure of her ability to get Sam(oose?) to feed her sausages. She was working on convincing Eileen, too. In the interest of getting sausages as soon as possible, Juliet happily helped the humans carry the pile of fetched things into their bunker palace. She couldn’t wait to see her new master’s reaction to the things she had brought.

In the days following their acquisition of the book, Sam(oose?) and Eileen spent most of their time studying it. They sat as close together as possible and discussed translations, picking spells out of Juliet’s former master’s words. Sam(oose?) talked about wanting to practice the basic spells in the book. Eileen smiled and said she’d like to learn, too.

Through it all, Juliet’s new master took advantage of their distraction to spend more time with Cas. With everyone occupied, it left Juliet with very little to do. Sometimes, she patrolled the halls of the bunker palace to make sure everyone stayed safe. Doing so had resulted in her finding and destroying a Bad Egg Thing before, and that had earned her a proper head pat, so it was something Juliet felt motivated to continue.

The warding didn’t seem to dislike her as much as it had when she first arrived. All the same, she still got turned around and sent in circles a few times. Still, it was progress, with all that it implied.

She returned from one of her patrols to find her master and Cas snuggled up together on their bed with the thing they called a laptop on top of them. The laptop showed people and was telling a story, but Juliet wasn’t interested in that. She just wanted to spend time with her master. First, she licked his hand. When he didn’t send her away, she sat down next to the bed and rested her head on the leg not covered by laptop.

Unfortunately that made his leg jerk, which toppled the laptop onto Cas’ lap and made her master shout, "Aw come on, Juliet, what gives?"

With a remorseful whine, Juliet moved her head from his leg to the bed beside him. Cas righted the laptop on his own lap and covered Dean’s hand with his own. "She’s probably lonely. Nobody’s paying any attention to her. Crowley took her almost everywhere with him."

Her master sighed. "Alright, fine, you can stay. Just…stay off the bed. I know Crowley used to cuddle with you guys, but this ain’t a big bed and there sure ain’t enough room in it for three of us."

Juliet supposed that was fair. She was about to move her head and just curl up on the floor, when her master’s unclaimed hand moved to her head where he lightly stroked her fur. It wasn’t as good as sprawling over him like a live blanket, but it was still good. Her thoughts drifted to memories of her former master, smiling and happy and never sending her away. There was no way he would have given her away unless he couldn’t come back for her. She knew that now. Wherever her master had gone, it was somewhere he never came back from. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and she wasn’t being punished. This was just the best out of a bunch of bad choices.

The laptop kept telling its story and every so often, her new master interrupted it to say something to Cas. Sometimes they pressed their faces together and ignored the story altogether. That was something Juliet knew all about. They had obviously made a deal. She had never seen anyone seal a deal so many times, though. It was almost a relief when they sent her outside. At least the laptop story didn’t interrupt her thoughts out there.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNING:** Do NOT attempt any drinking games during this chapter. Please fic responsibly.

As much as he liked having his family (or most of it) home and safe (more or less) in the Bunker, Dean was getting about as antsy as Juliet. Not that the past few weeks hadn't been awesome, but there were only so many times Dean could tinker on the cars or binge something on Netflix with Cas or watch Sam nearly lose his fingers feeding Juliet.

(Dean also still hadn't forgiven Sam for buying _her_ steaks and none for the humans. Dean had fixed that problem pronto by inviting Sam out to watch her hunt. Apparently a deer was _easy_ for a hellhound, and after that, Sam finally realized she could fend for herself, but that bacon or sausage from breakfast was still a treat.)

He was still a little hesitant to take Juliet on a hunt after the vampires, but word of a likely wendigo up in Michigan forced his hand. Sure, a couple of them could have handled it, but Dean was itching to get out of the Bunker for something other than a soul contract or a drive to the stores in Hastings. So, they all packed up and went on a family hunting trip (taking two cars for the much needed space—Sam and Eileen went in her Explorer).

"A wendigo doesn't look very human," Cas pointed out as Dean swallowed, watching Juliet get into the car. "Maybe this is a good idea for trying again."

"Yeah, maybe."

Dean could only hope so. Out of sight, out of mind was the only way he'd been able to deal with sending her to collect on the guilty contracts, and even then, he was more likely to hit up the booze while she was gone.

Sam had sat with him one night in the kitchen, drinking beer in solidarity after their entire opening conversation went something along the lines of "Wanna talk about it?" and "Nope". And for once, Sam had let it go and, instead, they'd just shot the shit about other stupid crap—Dean still couldn't believe that Sam thought Superman was better than Batman; it was an old argument but they'd finally agreed to disagree on those two and settle on Wonder Woman being pretty awesome and bad-ass. Look at them, practically mature adults or some shit.

Drinking sessions aside, having Juliet around all the time wasn't all that bad. Honestly, he'd kind of gotten used to having her follow him everywhere, and—not that he'd admit it aloud—she was actually decent company when she came up looking for head scratches when he and Cas were watching a show on his (their) bed. It was kind of their thing, the three of them.

Anyway, they hauled ass up to Michigan, then split into two groups in the woods, hoping they could cover more ground and wouldn't have to both protect lost hikers and get them home while also fighting off a giant cannibalistic monster that moved at supersonic speeds. The original plan was to send Sam and Eileen together with Juliet, but the hellhound made it clear that she thought Cas' attempts to tell her that he could protect Dean against a wendigo were a crock full of shit. Eileen, meanwhile, had joked that maybe she should look into getting a service hellhound for hunts. Sam had turned about as pale as a fucking sheet and said that wasn't the kind of dog he wanted. Juliet snarled slightly at the insult. Basically, they were off to a fanfuckingtastic start.

So that was how Cas and Eileen ended up paired off—which made sense, since Cas was also more fluent in ASL than Sam (and definitely more so than Dean, but he was getting better)—while Dean and Sam got to go back to the good ol' days of just the brothers against the world (except, with a hellhound, this time).

As they made their way through the woods, Sam paused to adjust the strap of his makeshift flamethrower. Dean had modified a few flare guns for just that purpose; propane tanks would have been a helluva a lot more awesome, but they probably would have ended up torching the whole forest in the process, so he was just going to have to save those toys for fun out behind the Bunker factory.

"You didn't bring peanut M&M's with you this time, did you?" Sam teased.

Dean gave his brother an indignant look. "Please. Grow up." Then he smirked and showed Sam the bag of licorice he had tucked inside his jacket.

"Seriously? That shit's gross."

Dean just continued grinning. "All part of the plan, Sammy: I ain't sharing. Bring your own damn food next time."

Turning back, he nearly walked into Juliet, who had stopped in the path. Her smoky, furry hackles were raised and her sulphuric breath was coming out in angry plumes against the cool mountain air.

"Smell something, Juliet?" Dean asked in a near-whisper.

Before she could reply, they heard a cry through the trees. "Help! Help me!"

It was Eileen's voice.

If this were their first wendigo, Dean was pretty sure Sam would have been off like a shot through the woods towards the voice. But Juliet started growling in the same direction, and the jig was up. Dean could only hope that the wendigo didn't have _reason_ why it knew to imitate Eileen's voice.

"Go get 'm, girl."

Juliet bounded off, her eyes glowing bright red. Sam and Dean were no match for a hellhound or a wendigo in speed, but they followed her path as best they could. After a moment, they stopped following paw prints and bent branches and instead just followed the snarls of the hellhound and the thrashing of the two creatures as they fought.

Panting and half-stumbling over the low brush and rocky terrain, Sam and Dean arrived at a clearing at the mouth of a cave at almost the same time as Cas and Eileen, coming from the other direction, but closer to the cave's entrance. Juliet was still facing off against the wendigo, whose long arms lashed out against the hellhound, forcing her to dodge back and forth as she attacked with snapping jaws.

"Get the hikers!" Dean called to Cas, who nodded immediately in understanding.

If the hikers were still alive, chances were they were in the wendigo's cave. Cas and Eileen ducked inside while the wendigo was distracted by Juliet hanging off of its arm by the teeth. Sam and Dean brought up their makeshift flamethrowers and aimed them at the grappling pair.

"Will we hurt her?" Sam asked, his eyes never leaving his target.

"She's a fucking hellhound! From Hell! Yeah, she can handle fire!" Dean retorted.

That didn't mean they had an easy, clear shot yet. Wounded and distracted or not, the wendigo moved _fast_. The whole fight was pretty much a blur of ghostly whitish limbs and blue-black flanks of muscle. Finally, after what seemed like minutes but was probably only fractions of seconds, Juliet was able to find an opening—how, Dean couldn't follow—and the wendigo was pinned on the ground. The creature had long, deep wounds on its torso and limbs, but it still thrashed feebly against the weight of the hellhound on its chest and arms; her teeth were locked around its neck.

Stepping forward, carefully, Dean and Sam took aim and fired their weapons at the struggling wendigo. Sam went for a headshot, nailing it between its dark, pitiless eyes. Dean opted for a torso shot, right below where Juliet's back paw pushed down on its lanky frame. At this distance, it was impossible to miss, and the wendigo erupted into flames, screeching.   

Juliet kept a firm paw on the monster's chest until it flailed and crumbled into ash. She was still growling and snarling with whatever they call adrenaline for a hellhound when Cas and Eileen emerged from the cave, supporting a college-aged guy between them. A girl about the same age came out shakily behind them, wide-eyed in shock and fright, but seemingly unhurt.

Dean breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, they were racking up some points in the wins column.

Juliet calmed after a moment, then returned to Dean's side. A little shaky from his own adrenaline crash, he patted her head.

"That'll do, girl. That'll do."

Of course, Sam ruined the moment. "Did you just _Babe_ a hellhound?"

"Shut up."

 

* * *

 

 

"Seriously? You're sure?"

Dean crumpled up the wrapper of his sandwich—turkey, bacon, avocado, some other veggies, and a nice aioli on ciabatta (Dean had warned Juliet she better not tell Sam; she'd just cocked her head and stared at him with her red eyes)—and tossed it in the sidewalk trash bin by where his car was parked. With the phone to one ear, he glanced over Baby's roof, across the street towards the bistro where their target, Alden Prewett McAlister III, was currently doing whatever it is that rich corporate douchecanoes do on their hour and a half long lunch breaks. Probably ordering something gluten free, just because it was trendy, and not tipping the waiter.

"Positive," Sam said through the speakerphone. Dean could hear the general noises of an office on his brother's end: chatter, a photocopier, phones ringing—it sounded like cubicle hell. There were probably some fax machines that needed a beating with a baseball bat. "We checked everything."

Cas spoke up on Sam's end. "We've been through all his accounts and records. Aside from this soul deal for a promotion, he—and the company—are 'clean.'"

"Sam, tell me he didn't do air quotes."

"He didn't do air quotes."

Huh. That wasn't Sam's BS-ing voice. Either Sam was getting better at lying to Dean or he was telling the truth and Cas was being marginally less dorky than usual. Would wonders never cease.

Dean sighed into the phone and glanced at Juliet, who was pacing along the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the grey cement retaining wall, on the other side of which stretched a sparkling river. It would be a nice day out if it weren't for having to follow Mr. Pocket Square around all day.

"Yeah—" Dean agreed, but Sam obviously anticipated some protest and interrupted him.

"Look, I know you think he's a dick, but the only thing he sold his soul for was a promotion. Nothing bad has come out of it, legally or even really morally, and cheating the promotion system doesn't exactly qualify someone for an eternity in Hell—"

"Alright, alright, I'll call off the hellhound," Dean grumbled. He hung up the phone and shoved it in his pocket but didn't call to Juliet right away. She wasn't going to be happy.

Post-wendigo, after Eileen had headed out but with the promise to return soon (she wasn't ready to move in full time yet with a guy she just started dating, his brother, his brother's...whatever Cas was, and a hellhound—go figure), they'd started hitting up some more of the contracts. Dean had set this one aside as a grey area since he had had trouble believing that Alden Prewett McAlister III (which Dean always felt the need to say in an uppity British accent, even if the guy was from New York) was on the up-and-up. McAlister just seemed like the kind of guy who would have fit in well with Dick Roman—human or leviathan. Dean had opted to tail the guy with Juliet (which went about as well as you'd expect in a city: Juliet had an awesome sense of smell and was a fucking fantastic tracker, but Google Maps, she was not); meanwhile, Sam and Cas had terrorized the accounting department of the company with a surprise visit from the IRS (Cas actually read the federal and Missouri state tax codes the night before in preparation because of course he did).

But other than finding out that McAlister had the douchiest and most convoluted Starbucks order known to mankind, he talked on his Bluetooth headset almost nonstop, and he actually expected his secretary to pick up and drop off his dry cleaning and shit, there was no dirt on him at all. Like Sam said, the guy was a dick, but that didn't earn him a nice, warmed up seat in Hell. (Although, Dean was admittedly having some pretty bad Zachariah and Sandover flashbacks, and if the dude ever mentioned a "juice cleanse", Dean might've told Juliet to sic 'm on principle.)

But, he couldn't stand around here all day. Time to actually meet with the guy, tell him not to be a colossal asshat or they might just come after him anyway, then rip up the contract.

"Come on, Juliet. No hunt today." Hellhounds couldn't really make puppy-dog eyes—the murderous red glow kinda ruined the whole thing—but she made her best attempt. Dean shook his head. "Yeah, I know. I'm bummed out, too. I'll take you out hunting again or something tomorrow. Whaddya think: we're only a few hours from bear country. Could be fun."

Juliet wasn't listening, though. Her whole posture changed, her muscles coiling and her teeth baring. She was looking past Dean in the direction of the bistro, and he turned to find McAlister getting into a taxi. Whatever it was that had set Juliet off probably had everything to do with the taxi driver, who took off like a bat outta Hell once McAlister was in the car.

Ah, shit. Just what he wanted to do: rescue a former trust fund kid turned CFO.

Juliet barked after the car, but didn't chase—Dean had to hand it to Crowley: she was well trained. A few people out and about looked up at the sound, but not seeing a dog, they went back to their business pretty quickly. Dean, however, was opening up the backseat of the Impala. Juliet bounded in and Dean got in his own seat, pulling the car out with a heavy foot on the gas to follow the taxi.

A tense hellhound gearing up for a hunt wasn't a great copilot: lots of snarling and sulphuric panting. Even though he knew Juliet's agitation wasn't aimed at him, it still set his nerves on edge as he followed the yellow cab.

"Is it a demon?" he asked her at a red light, when the cab was close enough to calm her slightly that they hadn't lost their prey. She barked once in reply, a sound that nearly burst his eardrums, but he assumed that was a 'yes'.

Awesome.

Dean sent a text to Cas and Sam and made sure his phone's GPS was on as they followed the taxi to the outskirts of the city where there was—wait for it—an old industrial park with a few abandoned warehouses and factories. They'd gotten a little separated during the drive, but it wasn't hard to find the bright yellow vehicle in the jungle of cement and brick. Dean already had Ruby's knife in his jacket like he did nine days out of ten lately, and so he and Juliet were quick out of the car and into the crumbling building almost as soon as the keys were out of the ignition. He was aware that this was probably a trap—no way was it a coincidence that a demon hijacked their soul contract's taxi and took him here—but McAlister was, for most intents and purposes, an innocent, and Dean wasn't going to just sit by and let the guy get tortured or killed.

It didn't take long to find the party inside: McAlister was babbling on about how he still had six months left on his contract and that he'd give the demon money or whatever it wanted until a cold, female voice snapped, "Shut _up_!" and there was a ripping sound, like duct tape. Juliet's ears were low as she stalked towards the factory floor; Dean followed behind with the knife.

"Come on out, Winchester," the woman called. "Join the fun."

They rounded the corner to find McAlister on his knees with his lips duct taped shut and his hands bound behind him. A woman with dark hair, pale skin, and black eyes sneered back at them. Thin fingers were curled in McAlister's hair, practically yanking him into place.

Dean's jaw nearly dropped. The leather jacket, the boots and jeans, the cruel smile…

"Meg?"

The demon scoffed. "That bitch died years ago. Emily, if you must know."

"I didn't. Could be Fred Flintstone for all I fucking care." Dean pointed the knife at McAlister, making sure the engraved silver of the blade glinted in the light of the grimy windows. "You're gonna let him go. Juliet here's been craving a hunt and I gotta say, I wouldn't mind a little action myself."

Emily pulled up McAlister to his feet, then shoved him in Dean's direction. McAlister stumbled past Dean and when no one stopped him, he took off at as much of a sprint as he could with his hands still bound behind him.

"Oh, come on, Dean. You know he was just bait. You're what I came here for."

"Sorry, sweetheart," Dean smirked. "Demons: I don't swing that way."

Emily cocked an eyebrow. "Not what I heard 'round the water cooler downstairs. In fact, your little buddy-buddy time with Crowley's what got us into this situation."

At this point in his life, Dean wasn't even all that bothered by whatever stories and rumors were being swapped about him and Crowley—some were probably more true than he'd like to admit, but it was over and done. So, he settled for his default setting: sarcasm.

"Aw, you pissed you didn't get promoted? Crowley didn't write you into the will, say you were his favorite little minion?"

Black eyes narrowed. "You don't even _know_ what you've ended up with," she hissed. "Crowley was a fool. I'm taking back what's rightfully Hell's."

Dean snorted. "Crowley was a helluva lot smarter than you, Fred. And, uh, I think we're done here. Juliet—"

Emily smiled, baring her teeth like a predator, and she called out, "Thor! To me! Attack!"

In an instant, a second hellhound, although one a little smaller than Juliet, leapt into existence and charged. Juliet didn't even wait for an order and retaliated, the two of them snarling and barking and biting at each other, leaving Dean to take on the demon.

No, demons. Plural.

Two more materialized behind Dean, trapping him—absently, Dean realized one of them was the taxi driver, and if he weren't completely preoccupied with not getting killed, he might have kicked himself for not realizing that sooner. Not-Emily-and-not-taxi-driver demon made the first move, which was a dumb one: he charged right at Dean, admittedly from behind, but this wasn't Dean's first rodeo and the trackpants on the demon's meatsuit were loud and a dead giveaway of his approach. Dean spun quickly and stabbed him in the gut. The demon's skull flashed orange as the corrupted soul died and the body crumpled to the floor.

Juliet and Thor were still locked together in a blur of teeth and claws that Dean could barely keep track of, especially since it was in his periphery as he turned to take on Taxi. Emily was shouting orders to both demon and hellhound, but the blood was pounding too hard in Dean's ears for him to make out the words.

Taxi had a good two or three inches on him and probably fifty pounds—and that wasn't even getting to the demonized strength. He managed to grab Dean and throw him against a pole. Dean's head smacked against the metal, making him see stars. The knife slid out of his hand and skidded just out of reach. Just as Dean's vision cleared, Taxi stalked over and gripped him by the lapels of his jacket, slammed his head once more against the pole, and dragged him up to his feet.

"Whatcha gonna do now, boy?" Taxi sneered.

There was probably some witty retort he could have made, but Dean just raised his arms and crushed them down on the demon's elbows, forcing him to release his grip on Dean's shirt and jerk forward. Dean grabbed Taxi by back of his shirt and hauled him forward and to the side, slamming the demon's head into the metal pole behind Dean. While the demon staggered up, Dean darted over and snatched the knife. He buried it in the demon's heart before Taxi could even react.

A sudden force sent him flying halfway across the room, although thankfully not into any solid objects other than the floor and whatever scraps and trash littered the concrete. But Emily's power was enough to make him hit that floor _hard_ , on his right shoulder, and he cried out as his collarbone snapped. Somewhere along the line, his glasses flew off. He skidded along the floor and his jeans and leg caught against a nasty piece of twisted machinery remains; the fabric ripped and there was a streak of pain all along his thigh as the metal bit in. Hot blood dripped down his leg and soaked into the denim.

Once he came to a stop, he groaned and tried to force himself up. He didn't even get to count it as a win that the knife was in reach—though he had to twist to reach for it with his left hand—because Emily on him in an instant. Her boot collided with his face, forcing him back to the ground. She aimed another kick at his side, cracking ribs.

Walking back a step, she picked up the knife and twisted it between her fingers. "This is a pretty little thing, isn't it? All part of Ruby's long con. I think Hell will take this back now."

Dean pulled his right arm against his torso to cradle it. He could only see out of one eye; Emily's boot had swollen the other and sealed it with the blood now dripping down his face. She crouched down and wrapped her free hand around his jaw, forcing his chin up and exposing his neck. Gently, she trailed the tip of the knife along his throat.

Her eyes flicked from black to a dark, stormy blue. "Having fun yet, Dean?"

"Go to Hell." His words were wet and thick and he could taste copper on his tongue.

"That's the gameplan." She pressed the blade a little deeper, just enough to draw blood. She grinned, catlike. "This always was my favorite part."

Suddenly, with a loud growl and a snapping of jaws, Emily was torn off of Dean. Without his glasses, he could only assume it was Juliet who was thrashing the demon around like a rag doll. Sucking in air through his teeth, Dean got himself up to a knee on his uninjured leg. He took a breath and forced himself to his feet. He shuffled over to the knife, grimacing as he bent over to pick it up, then limped over to Juliet and Emily.

The hellhound was holding her own, but the demon was a strong match. There were jagged rips in Emily's clothing and blood dripping from a gash in her arm. With a howl, Emily threw her arms out and Dean could hear Juliet's claws scrabble against the the concrete floor. Emily's eyes were black again as she drew out an angel blade from inside her jacket and stalked forward towards the invisible snarls.

"Let's go, Toto," Emily bit out, lashing out with the blade. There was a flash and black hellhound blood splashed to the floor.

Juliet whimpered. Dean saw red.

Dean quickened his pace, ignoring how much his body fucking hurt all over. He and Juliet reached Emily at almost the same time. Emily was knocked back as Juliet launched herself at the demon's throat, the action pushing her right into Dean, who plunged the knife into the demon's kidney and up into the ribcage. She flashed orange and screamed and fell to the ground.

Dean sank to his knees, almost deliriously watching as a trickle of black blood made its way over to him with the sound of soft whines.

"Hey, girl." He reached out just a little and she nosed his palm. "We did good, huh?"

Then everything went black.

 

* * *

 

 

"Dean!"

Dean snapped his eyes open just in time to feel the rush of Cas' Grace through his body, knitting bones and sealing wounds. Even the fog of his concussion lifted. Physically, he felt great, but many years experience of getting angel mojo-ed had shown Dean that human brains always needed a minute to catch up and figure out that they weren't actually hurt anymore. His tongue felt thick and his voice was groggy.

"Cas?"

Cas smiled down at him, his hand still cupped around Dean's jaw.

Dean grinned cockily. "Hey there, good lookin'."

Cas' eyes crinkled at the corners and he ran a thumb along Dean's cheekbone as Sam piped up from the side, "I'm here, too. And I'm fine, by the way."

"I know you are, asshole," Dean shot back. "You weren't the one fighting off demons."

He tried to sit up, but a weight on his stomach kept him down. He frowned as Cas leaned back onto his heels, revealing Juliet's head resting on him. There were a few places where Dean thought he could see bite or claw marks from the other hellhound through her fur, but what caught his eye was a slash in her smoky flesh along her shoulder, still weeping inky blood.

"Oh no. Juliet…" Cautiously, he reached out to her, right between the ears. She made a pained keening noise, but leaned into his touch.

"Oh yeah," he heard Sam say and then there was a hand holding out Dean's glasses. One lens was cracked, but the other was fine.

Dean distractedly pushed the hand away, his eyes widening as his brain caught up to what was happening.

"I-I can _see_ her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Wendigo' is mentioned 14 times (15, including this one), in case anyone was wondering.
> 
> Also, Emily and Thor first make their appearance in Thayer's [Top Dog](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11519964/chapters/25855704).
> 
> And even though you'll never see this, shout out and love to the real Emily (who isn't a demon, but if she were, she would totally have a hellhound named Thor). Sorry I killed you -- if you really were a demon, you'd definitely be ruling Hell by now because you're awesomely bad-ass.


	12. Chapter 12

The demon died and became cooling meat, leaving the young hellhound as the only thing that remained to threaten Juliet’s master. With its master dead, it struggled to stand on its wounded legs, its growls turned to whimpers. The memory of seeing its first proper hunt flashed through Juliet’s mind. It was just a ‘hound, not an enemy.

Checking on her master, Juliet drew up short. Without looking or sniffing him, she already knew that he was hurt but wasn’t in danger of dying. She hadn’t had such a clear sense of anyone since… 

She shook her head. It wasn’t the time for sad thoughts. A glance around the area and a quick sniff of the air revealed no more demons and that Cas was on the way. Her master was safe for the moment.

It hurt to walk. Juliet couldn’t remember ever hurting that much, not even when she had been hit with the iron thing on that one hunt. She had a job to do, though. She was a good dog, and good dogs didn’t stop until they were done.

Reaching the mass of blood and fur that Emily-demon had called Thor, Juliet put her head down and shoved until they stood at the edge of the closest shadow. Gathering her muscles, she bunched for one good leap, taking them both through to Hell.

They fell through and landed in the kennel, immediately the subject of investigation by the now half-grown litter of pups. Sniffing curiously at her sliced shoulder, most of the pups quickly opted to bat at her tail, while one licked the wound. Juliet had no time to indulge curious pups, though. She had a master who needed her. Tipping her head back, she howled.

Almost immediately, kennel master Connall came running. For someone who wasn’t a dog, he was such a good dog. His eyes fell on the tangle of Juliet and Thor. "Good girl, Juliet," he said. "You did the right thing bringing him to me."

Prying the pups off her, he then helped her to her feet. "Will you be staying?"

It was tempting. She might have agreed if New Man Harold had never come to take her away. The kennel had been a good home after her master had gone and never returned. She had a new home now, and a new master. Whimpering, she licked Connall’s fingers, then limped to the nearest shadow.

Connall smiled and nodded. "Good. I’m glad you’re happy. Go on back to your master, but you can come back any time."

Not waiting for anything else, Juliet practically fell into the shadow and struggled back through to the World Above. Though she failed to grasp the passage of time in most circumstances, she knew that time moved differently in Hell than it did in the World Above, and she had never been more grateful for that fact. It meant her master was exactly where she had left him, and sunshine/magic/that-smell-before-it-rains Cas had barely moved any closer. Juliet limped over to her master and protectively arranged herself over him, just to be safe.

What happened after that was a bit of a blur. Cas showed up and took away her master’s injuries. He was a good angel-man. Samoose was also there, but he didn’t say much. Together, Cas and Samoose helped Juliet back to her feet so her master could stand, then the three of them helped her get to the car beast. She spared half a thought to hope that someone else was keeping the other car beasts away, then closed her eyes for the entire trip home.

The car beast stopped, people got out, then they helped Juliet get out and into the bunker palace. The entire ordeal of getting inside was something best forgotten. Once inside, while people argued over how to best help her, Juliet limped to the food room. Her instincts told her to find warmth, and the food-making thing was the warmest thing she could remember. It wasn’t perfect, but she rested her flank against the shiny metal thing and waited for it to get warm again.

Her master said the others were "researching" a way to help her, but he stayed. He cleaned her bites and scratches with warm water and wrapped them with clean cloth, and even though he said he didn’t know what else to do about the cut from the angel knife, he stayed. He stroked her head and scratched behind her ears with strong fingers and he promised to make things better. She didn’t know how long she lay there before someone made the food-making thing get hot, but once they did, Juliet pressed against it more firmly and finally began to relax.

When she refused to move, her master brought soft things to lay on and he stayed with her. Cas and Samoose found hot things to put on top of her and the three of them took turns bringing her food. She felt wanted.

There was no keeping track of the sun inside the bunker palace, but eventually Samoose went to his room to sleep. Juliet’s master asked her if she wanted to sleep in his room, but she didn’t want to leave the hot things, so he told her to wait. He left, and when he came back it was with the soft thing for under his head. He slept in the food room with her and Cas stayed with them to watch over them. Her master didn’t even complain when she put her head on his chest, instead stroking her fur until he fell asleep with a hand on her head.

It must have been morning when Samoose entered the kitchen, moving as silently as he could. Juliet saw him look at the three of them laying sprawled together on the floor. He smiled, took something from the cold food box, grabbed a food scoop, then quietly left. Even though he was mostly quiet, her master still woke up.

From where her head rested on his chest, she got to watch his eyes blink open blearily. She braced herself for the inevitable panic, but instead he smiled and rubbed the backs of her ears. "Mornin’, girl. How you feelin’ today?"

Closing her eyes, Juliet leaned into her master’s hand and mentally evaluated her injuries. It felt like the bites and scratches had healed as quickly as such things usually did. The slice from the angel knife thing was a different matter. It still hurt and had much more healing left, but at least it had stopped oozing.

Along with that self-evaluation came other hurts. Her master’s back felt stiff and sore, as did his knees, and there was a pressure-pain in his lower abdomen. Lifting her head, she moved so he could get up, marveling as she did so at how clear her bond with her master had become. That’s when she realized what she had half-heard before. The face glass thing was gone and he could still see her!

He unwrapped the cloth bits he had tied on her hurts and made small surprised noises. "Wow, guess you don’t need much to heal up, huh?"

His hands were gentle on her shoulder as he felt around the area of the still-healing slice. "Okay, yeah, that one was bound to be different. It looks better, though. If it keeps up like that, might be healed over in a couple days?"

Juliet didn’t have an answer for him, so she just took the opportunity to lick his cheek. He laughed and ruffled her ears. "Alright, I gotta go take a leak and grab a shower, then I’ll get us both something to eat. That okay?"

It was definitely okay. She barked and he didn’t even flinch. Cas left with him to do whatever humans and angel-men did. Juliet settled back down to doze against the food-making thing, soaking up the heat. It usually only got hot when her master was making food with it, but Cas had monitored it all night so Juliet could stay warm. He was a useful angel-man.

When her master returned, he took a big piece of raw meat from the cold food box and gave it to Juliet without cooking it. Then for himself, he poured sweet-smelling grain things into a bowl and covered them in milk. Without being able to hunt for herself, it was the best morning food she could have asked for, and she didn’t even have to ask.

The rest of the day was spent in a warm pile on the floor with her master and Cas. They gathered as many soft things as they could find and propped the laptop on a box so they could all watch stories together. Most of them made no sense to Juliet, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to have the people she cared about nearby.

By the end of the day, Juliet was willing to leave the food-making thing as long as she was covered in the things they kept calling "hot water bottles" and "electric blankets". Her master spread a blanket on the floor of his room for her and she stayed beside the bed where she could reach his hand, which dangled over the edge and kept touching her fur. It wasn’t as good as spending the night with him on the floor with her, but he wasn’t so sore when he woke up, which was much better for everyone.

The next day, Juliet followed her master around the bunker palace at a pace that even a newly-spawned pup could match. Her master was patient and never left her behind. He spent the day doing things like cleaning clothes and packing salt into small metal tubes, but he sang while he worked and talked to Juliet just like he talked to Cas and Samoose and he paid attention to her when she had an answer to his words. It was a good day.

Another night of rest did wonders. She was still stiff and sore, but the wound had mostly healed over. Sometime after morning foods, Samoose said he was going to go somewhere with Eileen. It would have been nice if Eileen had come to visit — it had taken awhile for Juliet to figure out that Eileen couldn’t hear her, but once she realized that, Eileen was a wonderful person to be around — but Samoose going to visit her meant that Juliet would have her master and Cas all to herself. But then Cas said they were almost out of food, and that he was going to pick up groceries.

After going over the list with Cas, her master tried to convince him to wait by saying things like, "Leave it, we can make the stuff in the pantry last another day," and "We’ve still got those ration packs, right?"

Cas glared extraordinarily well for someone whose eyes weren’t made of fire. "I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Why don’t you take Juliet outside for some fresh air."

Oh, Cas was such a wise angel-man. Juliet wagged her tail and beseeched her master with her eyes. Her master looked at her, then looked away and said, "Not you, too! Bad enough when Sammy tries it." He glanced at her again and sighed. "Fine. I was just gonna let you watch _Doctor Sexy_ on the bed with me. At least this ain’t so bad for the memory foam."

As far as days went, it wasn’t half bad. The sun shone bright in the sky, warming Juliet as well as the food-making thing could, and all the small things in the woods had come out of hiding while she had been stuck inside. Her master had never taken her outside except for those first couple of hunts, before he had come to trust her to hunt on her own. It was nice to spend time with him outside, where she didn’t feel quite so confined.

Crossing into the woods hid the sun behind the trees a bit, but it was still warm enough for comfort. The dappled sunlight that hit the ground made interesting patterns that moved with the gentle breeze and made Juliet want to chase something. That’s when she saw the stick. It wasn’t anywhere near as big as the one she had brought to Samoose before, but something a pup could have carried. It gave her an idea. Grasping the stick in her teeth, she picked it up carefully and offered it up to her master.

Eyebrows raised, he reached out and took the stick, then smiled with half of his mouth. "You want me to throw this? You wanna play fetch like a regular ol’ dog?"

Juliet tried not to feel offended at the comparison. If she was being honest with herself — and she generally was — she was probably no faster than a regular dog at that moment. Instead of objecting, she barked to agree, tail wagging despite herself.

He chuckled and threw the stick, which flew end over end through the air. Barking happily, Juliet chased after it. Her shoulder was a little stiff still, but as long as she didn’t run too fast it didn’t hurt much. Tracing the stick’s path, she watched it land just before she reached it. She then scooped it up and brought it back to her master, who rubbed her head and ruffled her ears before taking the stick back.

Her master threw the stick for her as many times as she wanted him to, stopping only when she felt her shoulder start to ache worse than before. The sun had risen higher in the sky so it was pleasantly warm. She dropped the stick and licked her master’s fingers. He smiled so it crinkled his eyes and rested a hand on her head. "You’re right. Let’s head back."

They walked back together, his hand on her back, and while they walked, her master talked. "Y’know, when you first got here, I thought Crowley musta been fuckin’ nuts, leavin’ you with me. I mean, he knew what the hell happens in Hell. Happened to him, too, right? Always figured that’s why we, I dunno, why we understood each other."

Sensing he wasn’t finished, Juliet tilted her head to one side and whined. Her master patted her flank, then continued, "Don’t get me wrong, Crowley was always kind of an ass, but the more I look back, the more I can see past all that. He… I guess he got me better than I ever knew myself. I know he musta had his own selfish reasons, but plenty of times he had our backs an’ never even waited around for a thank you.

"Guess what I’m sayin’ is, I think Crowley knew you an’ me would need each other after he was gone. He spent years lookin’ out for me behind my back, then he made sure you’d be here to take over after he died. He knew you’d need someone to stick with you, and he made sure you’d be good an’ looked after. He was a smarmy bastard, but he sure knew how to plan ahead."

Juliet considered that. Her new master could never be as smart as her former master — he was only human, after all — but sometimes he got things just right. She bumped her head against his side, then jumped up to lick his face. It startled him into a laugh and he gave her a one-armed squeeze. "Yeah, that’s enough of that. What say you and me go raid my stash of beef jerky and watch _Doctor Sexy_. If Cas is back, he and I can sit up and you can lay at the end of the bed. We’ll figure it out."

She had no idea what he was talking about, but it sounded good. Barking to agree, she led the way back. Beef jerky was all she needed to hear.

Fetch became a daily game between Juliet and her master. Each day saw her able to run farther and faster, until one day she managed to catch the stick in midair. Seeing that, her master half-smiled and asked her to go fetch a bottle of Scotch from the St. Andrews warehouse. Bringing that back earned her some really great belly rubs.

The floor beside her master’s side of the bed became Juliet’s. When she fetched her bed from Hell’s kennel and set it down in her master’s room, he huffed a little laugh and said, "Decided to stay then, have you?"

Juliet had decided to stay long before that, but she could forgive her master for being slow to figure that out. At least he figured out how to be polite with her. When he and Cas wanted her out of the room for whatever reason, they asked nicely now. Most often, they would ask if they could have time alone, suggesting that she visit with Samoose and Eileen, and they always made it up to her later.

But the best thing happened some time after she was fully healed. Samoose still fed her meats under the table, but sometimes Eileen was there and she did the same. That very good day, they were both there, looking at their phone things after they were done eating. Her master and Cas were cleaning the mess left after the making of foods. Eileen showed Samoose something on her phone thing, and soon after, they were packing to go on a hunting trip.

Ever since her injury, Juliet had been left behind for hunting trips, so she was prepared to spend a few days bored and lonely at the bunker palace. Her master and Cas packed things into a bag and loaded them into the back of the car beast, Eileen and Samoose did the same with Eileen’s car beast, and soon they were all ready to go. Juliet was about to mournfully say goodbye to her master when he opened the back of the car beast for her. When she didn’t immediately move, he said, "C’mon fuzzball, let’s get movin’. We’ve got a lotta ground to cover today."

She wasn’t being left behind. There was a hunt and her master needed her help. Juliet hopped into the back of the car beast and prepared to warn anything that might threaten them on the way. She had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who joined us along the way and left comments with your wonderful thoughts and reactions. This story was pure joy to write, but you all made it even better after all the writing was done. Seeing your comments was probably the best part of every day, and personally, I can't wait to hear from the people who discover this after it's all done. Those comments and kudos are what keep us writing. It has been a delight to see each others' regular readers, and I can't speak for Grey, but I loved seeing some of you come visit my other fics.
> 
> This story is now complete, but we're not done with this little misfit family. We said at the beginning that this story was like Christmas, and it seems it's the gift that keeps on giving. If you enjoyed this, I encourage you to subscribe to the series (or to us directly) because we each have at least one more little story to share in this 'verse. Keep your eyes on this series and look for something on... I think Monday.
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> -Thayer

**Author's Note:**

> ^^ What Thayer said. Love you all.   
> \- Grey
> 
> If you like our stuff, we have more!  
> [Thayer's works](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ThayerKerbasy/pseuds/ThayerKerbasy/works)  
> [Grey's works](http://archiveofourown.org/users/grey2510/series)  
> And we Tumblr! @[grey2510](https://grey2510.tumblr.com/) and @[thayerkerbasy](https://thayerkerbasy.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!!


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